


Beyond Life, Beyond Death

by dancewithme19



Series: I Hear Your Voice [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: Afterlife, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 16:46:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8631385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancewithme19/pseuds/dancewithme19
Summary: Soul-tying isn’t a decision to take lightly. Kurt knows that. But for perhaps the first time in his life, there’s no part of him that even wants to second-guess. Maybe because there is a part of him that knows what’s coming.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The original version of this was written right around the beginning of season 5, with the intention of publishing it as the fifth part of the I Hear Your Voice series. Unfortunately, I lost inspiration for parts 3 and 4 along the way, so I decided to go ahead and edit it for publication now. Please heed the warnings!

The only light is the orangey glow of the streetlamps filtering in through the slats of their blinds, muted by the filmy white curtains half-closed in front of them. It casts distorted shadows across their rumpled sheets. The way it falls on Blaine’s profile is nothing short of beautiful.   
  
Kurt is warm and loose and melting inside, his skin buzzing just beneath the surface and calling, still, for Blaine. He doesn’t move closer, though, doesn’t do anything more than tighten the grip of his sweaty fingers around Blaine’s and look his fill. Everything about him, from the angles of his jaw to the fluttering of his eyelashes to the harsh sound of his breath, it’s all familiar by now, and precious, and nothing at all that Kurt could ever get used to.  
  
And then Blaine turns, and he looks, too, and his eyes catch the light in that certain way they have that makes them seem to sparkle. He smiles, and it’s everything.  
  
“Come here,” he murmurs. Kurt lets himself be gathered close.  
  
Blaine is warm around him, his heart beating steady and still too fast beneath the layers of muscle and bone and flesh that separate them. Kurt would burrow inside Blaine’s chest until their hearts beat side by side, if he could. He doesn’t, though, he can’t, so he presses close, skin to skin, and buries his nose into the curve of Blaine’s neck. Blaine’s legs weave with his, and their hips nestle together, and it doesn’t matter that they’re soft and still kind of sticky, because their bodies were made to fit together.  
  
Kurt presses a kiss to Blaine’s skin. It’s salty. He does it again.  
  
“Let’s stay like this forever, okay?”  
  
Blaine laughs. It’s silent, but Kurt can feel it.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
He nuzzles his cheek into Kurt’s mussed, messy hair. Kurt nuzzles back.  
  
“I mean it, I – ” Kurt stops, struck. He sucks in a breath that smells so much like Blaine he could choke with the joy of it. He knows – this is it. Right here, right now, when they’re connected as they can be without cutting themselves open to mingle their blood. This is the moment he’s been waiting for, here for him to take. “Let’s not just renew our vows,” he breathes.  
  
Blaine stiffens, of course he does, because Kurt was clumsy, and he knows what that sounded like. He clutches Blaine closer, a reflex.  
  
“No,” he says quickly. “That’s not – I want – ” He pulls back, just enough that he can look Blaine in the eye when he says this. He tries to ignore the thudding of his heart. “I’ve already promised my life to you, Blaine. I want to promise my soul, too.”  
  
Blaine is looking at him with big, big eyes, liquid with awe and uncertainty.  
  
“You mean – ?”   
  
Kurt swallows. He nods.  
  
“I don’t want to settle for ‘till death do us part.’”  
  
Blaine blinks, eyelashes slow and sweeping.  
  
“You – you want to get soul-tied?”  
  
His eyes are still big, too big, and his voice has the slightest edge of a tremble. Kurt frees one hand and pets his thumb soothingly over the skin at Blaine’s temple.  
  
“Of course I do. Of course.”  
  
Blaine hesitates. He’s holding back. Kurt tries not to panic or pull back or do anything at all except wait, and listen. It’s not easy.  
  
Blaine swallows  
  
“Are you sure?” he whispers. His eyes dart between Kurt’s, back and forth and back again, searching for something that Kurt knows he’ll never see. There isn’t an ounce of doubt in his body.  
  
Kurt smiles.  
  
“So sure. I want to know you in every way that I can, Blaine. I want – I want to be inside you, always, where no one else can touch, and I want you to be inside me. I want to feel you, even when you’re not there. I want to walk into the next life holding your hand, and I want to find you and choose you again and again and again, until the sun explodes and I can’t anymore.”  
  
Blaine laughs, strangled and small.  
  
“ _Kurt_. I – that’s – oh, my god.”  
  
He’s speechless and breathless and on the verge of tears. Kurt isn’t far behind. He gathers himself, pulls their hands into a messy pile between their manic, beating hearts.  
  
“Blaine Anderson, will you be my soulmate?”  
  
Blaine breathes in sharply, helplessly, then dives in for a kiss that’s little more than two mouths mashing as close as mouths can get, a desperate bid for connection. Kurt’s hand slides into the wreck of Blaine’s hair, holding firm to the contours of Blaine’s skull and keeping him close, even as they pull apart.  
  
“Is that a yes?” Kurt murmurs.   
  
Blaine smiles. Kurt can feel it beneath his hands and against his cheek.  
  
“Of course, dummy.” His nose nudges affectionately into Kurt’s. “I meant what I told you when I proposed.”  
  
“We were soul-tied in another life,” breathes Kurt.  
  
“In every life.”  
  
“I don’t want anything to take you from me. Not ever again.”  
  
He says it fiercely. Too fiercely. His voice cracks on the tail-end.  
  
“I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
They’re forehead to forehead and close enough that their eyelashes brush when they blink. Kurt feels as if he could cry, but he doesn’t. He laughs instead, and it feels like the same thing. It feels like relief, and like love too big to stay inside his body. Blaine laughs, too, and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him.  
  
They don’t let go.  
  
&&&&&  
  
Their friends don’t get it. It’s not like anyone’s opinion on the subject matters except for his and Blaine’s, but it would have been nice if they were at least better at pretending to be happy for them.   
  
“It’s very romantic, of course, but it isn’t something you can just take back,” says Rachel, wide-eyed and earnest, as if she honestly believes it’s the first time the thought will have crossed their minds.  
  
“Are you crazy?” seems to be all Tina can muster.  
  
“Didn’t you guys have, like, this whole thing a couple years back where you were suffocating each other and making each other miserable, and you came up with the genius idea that, hey, maybe relationships actually work better when you’re not constantly stuck together like Trouty Mouth’s jizzed-up old gym socks?” is Santana’s helpful contribution.  
  
Even Sam can’t disguise the worry that creases a furrow in his brow. He tries to, valiantly, but his congratulations are a tad too manic to be believable.  
  
Blaine is gracious enough to thank them for their concern, while Kurt grits his teeth and, miraculously, bites back everything he’s thinking except for a sharp “We’d appreciate it if you would mind your own business.”  
  
It’s an exhausting week. So much so that Friday night couch time turns into Friday night nap time before they’ve even finished a single episode of _The Golden Girls_.  
  
They wake hours later, in the dim pre-dawn light. They’re tangled and cramped and vaguely sticky. There’s a wet spot pooling just over Blaine’s left nipple, where Kurt was resting his head, and Kurt’s ears are still ringing with the power of Blaine’s jackhammer snore, the one that startled him awake, and it’s the kind of thing that should be embarrassing but actually is kind of weirdly sexy. Blaine is sleepy-eyed and muzzy, with his hair starting to curl in the places where it’s been rubbing against the couch cushions and his mouth stretched in a yawn. Kurt kisses his cheek tenderly and climbs off of him, teetering a little on his unsteady legs. He helps Blaine up like the gallant gentleman that he is and tugs at Blaine’s wrist until he’s led them to bed. They don’t say a word, not until they’re under the covers and bare to each other, Blaine’s body warm and pliant and sending up sparks to meet Kurt’s.  
  
“God, I love you,” murmurs Blaine, and it makes Kurt’s body sing. He sinks down, sinks everything into Blaine, lets his lips and his hands and his hips do the talking.  
  
Blaine gasps and screws his eyes shut. His head tips back into the pillow, lengthening the lovely lines of his throat. Kurt stills, hovers. He nuzzles his nose against Blaine’s. His eyes rove over the dark sweep of Blaine’s eyelashes against his cheek.  
  
“Open your eyes,” he whispers.  
  
Blaine does. His eyes are darker than they ever are in the light of day, but somehow still bright. Beautiful. Overwhelming. Blaine’s hands find his, and he threads their fingers together.  
  
Kurt could never, ever doubt _this_.  
  
They kind of dread telling their families the news, after all of the grief their friends gave them, but they put smiles on and grasp each other’s hands and hope for the best.  
  
“Look,” says Kurt’s father, “I know you’re not looking for advice, so I won’t bother giving it to you. You’re both young, some would say too young, but you’ve got good heads on your shoulders, and you wouldn’t be making such a huge commitment without putting a lot of thought into it.”  
  
Kurt rolls his eyes at his dad’s apparent belief in his own subtlety and assures him that they have. Then Carole gets in on the call and coos over them just the way she did when they told her about their engagement, and all four of them are starting to get misty-eyed by the time they hang up.  
  
Blaine’s parents are surprised, bordering on shocked, but they cover it well and manage to maintain the same carefully supportive tone they take whenever Blaine blindsides them with a big life decision.  
  
“I suppose we should have seen this coming,” laughs Pam, once the news has sunk in. “Blaine used to spend hours playing soulmates with his superhero action figures.”  
  
“When I was _four_.”  
  
“Yes, darling, and you were adorable.”  
  
Blaine is red-faced and clearly embarrassed, so Kurt tries not to grin _too_ hard, but the thought of little Blaine, with his tiny bow ties and his immaculate, pre-curly hair, solemnly tying the souls of his favorite X-Men, is so cute that he really can’t help it. Kurt himself was probably officiating Power Ranger weddings at exactly the same moment.  
  
Their friends start to come around, eventually, once they figure out this isn’t just a whim. Sam overshoots and musters up enough enthusiasm to power about ten best friends. Mercedes offers to write them a song for the reception. Rachel bakes them “I’m Sorry” cookies.  
  
“I really am so, so happy for you,” she says, tears welling up in her eyes. “And so, so proud.”  
  
“We love you, too,” says Blaine, warmly. She throws her arms around the both of them for a three-way hug.  
  
“I don’t get it,” says Santana one night, when it’s just the two of them, her and Kurt, and a bottle of tequila that she is primarily responsible for emptying. “It’s – whatever, it’s your thing, I just – aren’t you scared?”  
  
There’s something vulnerable in her eyes, her barriers torn down by the burn of the liquor. Kurt slides his arm over her shoulders and leans his head against her hair.  
  
“No. We’re good. He’s…the safest place I know.”  
  
She’s silent. He rubs her shoulder and pretends he doesn’t see the tears welling up in her eyes.  
  
&&&&&  
  
They hold each other in the light of the rising sun, drifting on the edge of sleep. Blaine’s hand suddenly tightens where it’s splayed over Kurt’s ribs. Kurt snuggles closer, his cheek resting over Blaine’s heart. He waits.  
  
“You don’t think Santana is right, do you?” whispers Blaine, finally.  
  
Kurt stiffens. It’s like a reflex, out of his control. He breathes in, forces his muscles to release, disassembles his armor.  
  
“No. I don’t.”  
  
He doesn’t bother to gentle his tone. He hooks a leg over Blaine’s, instead, twining them closer. He knows by now that the press of his weight and the warmth of his skin will do more than any words he could think to say.  
  
“You don’t think you’ll feel…claustrophobic?”   
  
Blaine shifts. There’s tension in his body that wasn’t there before. Kurt can feel it, the fear that runs deeper than Blaine will ever say. He shifts, too, so that he can look Blaine in the eye.  
  
“No,” he says, with all the certainty in his heart. “I don’t.”   
  
Blaine smiles in a way that says he’s trying, so very hard, for that to be enough. Kurt aches with the wish that Blaine could just reach into him and feel what he’s feeling, because he’s certain that Blaine wouldn’t think to doubt, if he could.   
  
Soon.  
  
Kurt reaches up, instead, and cards his fingers through Blaine’s hair. It’s stiff, and slightly sticky, but it softens under the gentle attention of his fingers. Blaine’s eyelashes flutter in response.   
  
“I know it will mean a loss of privacy,” says Kurt, softly.   
  
Blaine raises his eyebrows, eyes still a little guarded.  
  
“Try total eradication.”  
  
“I know. And I know I didn’t exactly handle it well, you know, before – ”   
  
“Neither of us did.”  
  
“But we figured it out, didn’t we?”  
  
Blaine’s eyes go soft.  
  
“Yeah, we did.”   
  
“I’m not going to lie and say that I think it will be easy, for either of us, but…you’re already a part of me, Blaine, and you always will be. This will just make it official.”  
  
“I just don’t want you to do this because you think it’s something I need.”  
  
There it is, that strained quality that Kurt hates, because he knows it means that Blaine is working to hold back tears.  
  
“No. I don’t – I don’t think that. I think – maybe it’s something I need.”  
  
Blaine blinks, surprised, but there’s really no reason that he should be.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because I’m tired of blocking you out.” It slips out, unthinking, and maybe that’s better. “I’m tired of losing you.”  
  
“You won’t.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“This isn’t something we should do out of fear.”  
  
 _Because you still don’t trust in us_ , it’s written in Blaine’s open eyes.  
  
“That’s not it. I want this because I trust you. I want to make this choice, once and for all, to trust you with everything.”  
  
Blaine smiles again, this time as brilliant and blinding as the sun rising just beyond their window.  
  
&&&&&  
  
They ask Brittany to perform the ceremony. She’s the only mage they know, and it’s something that feels far too…intimate to trust in the hands of a stranger.   
  
In a pique of inspiration (a.k.a. jealousy), Rachel declares that she is going to get herself ordained and perform the vow renewal part of the ceremony (“the first act”), but, unfortunately, Cooper is just that much quicker on the draw.   
  
“It’s the least you can do after offering the role of Best Man to someone else,” he wheedles, his eyes just big and sad enough that Kurt doesn’t even think of protesting when Blaine gives in.  
  
Rachel deflates when they tell her, but it isn’t long before she’s perking up and resolving to be the best Best Woman ever. She starts treating Sam like he’s her rival for a competition solo.  
  
It’s a long three months.  
  
All of that is forgotten, though, the day of the ceremony.  
  
They exchange their vows, and the rings. Kurt’s ring finger has been feeling naked for days, while the jeweler was working on their inscriptions. The weight of it, now, feels like home. He and Blaine both have happy tears in their eyes. Kurt hears a muffled honking that can only be his dad, blowing his nose into Carole’s best handkerchief from the front row. Kurt smiles even harder, and squeezes Blaine’s hands.   
  
He’s nearly vibrating with how much he can’t wait for what’s coming next.  
  
Cooper takes a deep bow to confused, scattered applause, and steps aside with a dramatic flourish of the hands.  
  
Brittany has somehow become lovelier than ever, and more ethereal, as if spending so much time harnessing the impossible has made her a little impossible, too. Santana is grinning up at her proudly. Brittany sends her a wink.  
  
Her voice is clear, when she speaks.  
  
“I don’t get to perform soul-tying ceremonies very often. Most people are afraid, I think. Most people should be. It isn’t something you can just take back, like a fake Mayan Apocalypse wedding. I like doing it, though, because souls are beautiful, and they’re meant to be shared.” She looks at them, expression entirely serene. “Are you ready?”  
  
Kurt is thrumming. Blaine’s hands are trembling in his. They tear their eyes away from each other to look at her, and they nod.  
  
She smiles. The words she uses are traditional, strange and serious coming out of Brittany’s lips.   
  
“Look him in the eye and repeat after me. I, Kurt Elizabeth Anderson-Hummel do pledge to bind my soul to thine, beyond life, beyond death, never to be torn asunder.”  
  
Kurt swallows. His mouth is dry and his brain is filled to the brim with the brilliance of Blaine’s eyes on his, but somehow he manages to stumble through the words he’s been practicing since he was four and heard Drew Barrymore say them for the first time. Blaine’s grip tightens painfully.  
  
Blaine’s voice is soft and low and so close to breaking, when it’s his turn, but he makes it through, and then they’ve made it, and Brittany is asking for their hands. Kurt can barely bring himself to let go, but he does it. His whole body longs to fit itself to Blaine’s right now, like interlocking puzzle pieces.  
  
 _Soon_.  
  
She holds their hands in her sure, strong grip, and she closes her eyes. Kurt doesn’t know what he expected – a glow, maybe, or a mist, like you see in movies sometimes – but it’s nothing he can see or hear or touch, just a sharp tug from deep within, and –   
  
He gasps.  
  
– oh.   
  
It’s Blaine, it’s _him_ , it’s – in his lungs, his bones, his blood, touching every scattered particle of his soul, he’s –   
  
_There you are_.   
  
He opens his eyes, and he knows that Blaine can feel it, too – _him_ , skittering through Blaine’s body.   
  
“May you forever live in love,” murmurs Brittany.  
  
She lets go of their hands, and they’re together in an instant, as if drawn by magnetic force. And then Blaine is under his lips, his hands, his chest, and pumping through his heart, and this, god, this – cracked open, laid bare, no place left to hide and no way he would ever want to, not from him – it’s _everything_ he didn’t know he was searching for, it’s everything, it’s –   
  
Home. Blaine. Synonymous.  
  
There isn’t a dry eye in the room.  
  
&&&&&  
  
Being soulmates, it doesn’t make everything perfect, or even easier. They still fight, sometimes, about stupid things, and feeling Blaine’s anger, or his hurt, it’s like being ripped up from the inside. And then, of course, they get stuck in a feedback loop, and it takes them months of adjustment before they learn to get themselves out of it without storming off for a terrible night apart.  
  
On the plus side, making up has never been better.  
  
They spend their entire honeymoon in a sex haze and, actually, most of the month that follows. There’s an uncomfortable intervention from their closest friends after they spend the last half of Rachel’s birthday dinner party in the bathroom together. It inspires them to at least attempt to be more discreet until their hormones settle.  
  
They put the work in – they learn themselves, listen to each other, figure out all over again how to be independent people, in spite of their connected souls.  
  
It’s worth it for that feeling Kurt gets when he catches Blaine’s eye, from across a room or across the pillow, it doesn’t matter – safe, seen, _home_ , every time, like a pulse of hearth fire beneath his skin. Or when Blaine’s joy burbles like a song through Kurt’s blood, or when his pain cuts Kurt to the quick, and it’s their pain, because burdens are shared between them and all the lighter for it.   
  
It’s so completely worth it when they touch, and he can _feel_ his soul, lit up and alive at the nearness of its mate, and it’s impossible to tell where he ends and Blaine begins.  
  
Blaine is always there, whenever Kurt needs him and even when he doesn’t. Everything is worth that.  
  
&&&&&  
  
Life continues. Careers, kids, and a house with a big, beautiful yard. There’s a dog, eventually, and then a cat. The house is full, and alone time is scarce, but they manage it.  
  
Blaine starts to get fine laugh lines around his eyes. Kurt gets his first gray hair, and immediately plucks it out. He holds onto Blaine extra tight that night, and dozes off to the familiar current of warm-bright-melodic _Blaine_ he feels pooling into his heart.  
  
He’s not afraid of growing old, not with Blaine at his side, but that doesn’t mean they have to do it _yet_.  
  
He takes to giving Blaine neck rubs at the end of the day, because Blaine carries so much tension in his neck, and then he’ll sleep on it funny, and he’ll wake up with a crick and a headache, and it just becomes this vicious cycle. Blaine smiles and happily accepts his fussing.  
  
Kurt asks him what it feels like, on his end. Blaine tells him, “Blue. And green. Like your eyes,” then sneaks a kiss to the tip of his nose.  
  
The kids grow and grow. Kurt finds more gray hairs. Not even Blaine can convince him not to start dyeing.   
  
“Just you wait, Sir Gels-a-lot. See how you feel when it’s your turn.”   
  
“Personally, I plan to age gracefully.”  
  
Kurt scoffs. “Screw that. I’m holding onto my youth as long as I can.”  
  
“Better not make it too long. People will start to think I’m your sugar daddy.”  
  
Laughter bubbles between them. Kurt curls his arms around Blaine’s shoulders and holds him close enough that their foreheads touch.  
  
“Promise you’ll stop me before it gets to that point?”  
  
Love surges through the places where they’re connected.  
  
“Promise. We’ll be the most distinguished gentlemen in the nursing home, I guarantee it.”  
  
Kurt smiles, and kisses him.  
  
Tracy starts guitar lessons and Hepburn takes up tap-dancing. They have Friday night dinners and family sing-alongs around the piano before dessert (Goldie the Golden Retriever likes to join in, to Blaine’s amusement and Kurt’s chagrin). Rachel and her family and, sometimes, Santana and Brittany come over for Sunday brunch. They make regular trips to Ohio to see their family and spoil their godchildren rotten.  
  
Blaine attempts to grow a goatee, in spite of Kurt’s vehement protests, and quickly regrets it. Kurt caves in and gets reading glasses. Tracy gets her first training bra. Hepburn gets braces.  
  
Time doesn’t stop.  
  
They’re happy.  
  
&&&&&  
  
It’s a Saturday, early afternoon. Blaine is out taking Goldie for walk. Tracy is upstairs, practicing for an upcoming recital. Hepburn is in the living room with his friend Rowan, playing video games. Kurt is in the kitchen slicing mango for lunch and humming along to the tune stuck in his head. He’s thinking about work, and about their evening plans, and about the moody streak Tracy has been on for a good week, now. He’s got one vigilant ear on the boys and one on the strains of guitar floating down from behind Tracy’s closed door, and he’s enjoying the warm-calm-happy coming from Blaine, who’s probably humming the very same tune.  
  
It’s a normal day. And then, suddenly, it’s not.  
  
There’s a paralyzing flash of fear that he doesn’t understand, not until he realizes it isn’t his, and then – nothing.   
  
Like someone turned out the lights, or turned down the volume, only it’s not his sight or his hearing, it’s _Blaine_ , and it’s wrong, so incredibly _wrong_. He feels unnatural, scraped hollow. He’s screaming, and he doesn’t understand why there isn’t any sound.  
  
The knife must have slipped, because it’s fallen to the floor, and he has a gash on his thumb that he should be concerned for, but he isn’t, because he’s too busy fumbling for his phone. He can’t make his fingers work. He feels _wrong_.  
  
He hits speed dial, and it’s the longest four rings of his life before Blaine’s cheery voice tells him to leave a message. He doesn’t.  
  
“Pop?”  
  
That’s Hepburn’s voice, concerned. He must have heard the clatter of the knife. Or maybe he can feel the wrongness, too.  
  
“Something’s happened,” Kurt chokes out. “I can’t – I need to find him.”  
  
And his feet are already taking him to the door, which is good, because he’s still stuck on _wrong, wrong, wrong_.  
  
“You mean – Dad?”  
  
His voice sounds young. He is young. Kurt turns to him, but he can’t give him the comfort he needs, not right now.  
  
“Call 911,” he says, strangled but calm. “I’ll call when I know more.”  
  
He walks right out the door, away from his son’s blanched face, and starts to run. He doesn’t know where he’s going, just that he needs this to _stop_. His feet are bare. He doesn’t notice until he steps on a shard of glass. It doesn’t slow him down.  
  
He’s keening inside, searching, groping, but he’s met with cold, dark nothing.  
  
 _Blaine, Blaine, Blaine, where are you?_  
  
He’s never not there. Kurt doesn’t understand.  
  
 _Where are you?_  
  
And then he sees – around the block, en route to the park. A car stopped in the middle of the road. Goldie just in front, whining and whimpering and nudging at –   
  
_Oh. There you are._  
  
&&&&&  
  
He loses it. He knows that. But that doesn’t mean he can stop it from happening.   
  
He pushes aside the panicked driver and takes over CPR and screams at the paramedics when they try to take Blaine away from him. They let him ride with them in the ambulance and cling to the parts of Blaine’s body he can reach without getting in their way. He smooths over the skin of Blaine’s ankle and concentrates on its warmth as he tries to will the life back into him.   
  
It doesn’t work. Blaine is cut up and bruised, and he has Kurt’s blood on his shirt, and _he’s still not there_.  
  
And then Kurt is left abruptly alone in the waiting room, watching as Blaine is wheeled back where Kurt can’t follow. He calls Rachel, and she brings the kids, and he can’t say a word to any of them as he waits for Blaine to grasp the desperate fingers he’s stretching out into the void. She gets him a bandage for his thumb, and one for his foot. He doesn’t let the doctor look him over.  
  
“This hospital has some of the best medical mages in the country,” murmurs Rachel, an attempt at reassurance. “You’re connected, there’s no way – ”  
  
“I can’t feel him, Rachel.”  
  
Her eyes go wide. They flick over to Tracy and Hepburn, on her other side, who are unabashedly staring.  
  
“They’ll bring him back to you, Kurt. I know they will.”  
  
Her smile is uncertain. Kurt looks away.  
  
They wait.  
  
&&&&&  
  
In the end, not even magic can save him.  
  
“There was nothing we could do,” they say. “His soul had already left his body by the time he got to us.”  
  
Kurt could have told them that.  
  
“Where did it go?” he asks.  
  
“Somewhere we can’t reach, I’m afraid. Somewhere safe.”  
  
Kurt nods, sick and empty where Blaine should be.  
  
“To wait.”  
  
He knows that should be comforting, but it isn’t.  
  
&&&&&  
  
It’s been two weeks. He won’t let anyone plan a funeral. He won’t say goodbye.  
  
He thinks he’s gone numb all the way through.   
  
He’s glad.  
  
&&&&&  
  
No one knows exactly where souls go after their bodies die. Thousands of years of study by the world’s greatest minds, and the only consensus seems to be _not here_. Some people know it as “purgatory,” others “the in-between,” or “limbo,” but most have taken to calling it “the waiting room.”  
  
Wherever it is, and whatever it’s called, there’s one thing that’s absolutely certain: it’s there that souls make the final decision – to start over or to move on.   
  
Some stay in the waiting room for years, deliberating, while others are in and out with barely a flicker. Still others, the soul-tied amongst them, are bound with tethers to the world of the living and can do nothing at all, except wait.  
  
Kurt asked Brittany once what it means, to move on.   
  
“I mean, where do you _go_? People talk about it like there’s some portal you walk through, and bam – there you are, over the rainbow, in living Technicolor.”  
  
It was in high school. His dad was in the hospital, and no one else would give him a straight answer. Not even the school mage, Miss Pillsbury, who just looked at him with her sad doe eyes and her lips stretched into what was probably supposed to be a comforting smile. “It means you go to a better place,” she said gently. Kurt was gone before she could so much as twitch in the direction of her pamphlet collection.  
  
Brittany’s eyes defocused, and she smiled.  
  
“People are wrong. It’s like…dissolving. You float away, like dust, and you become part of everything.”  
  
It sounded nice. Peaceful. It gave him comfort.  
  
But it was never an option, for him. Not after Blaine.  
  
They agreed on that, always. It was the one thing about their future plans that stayed constant, no matter how many times they discussed it. They could never, ever turn down the opportunity to find each other all over again.  
  
Now, Blaine is stuck where no one can find him. And Kurt is here, paralyzed.  
  
&&&&&  
  
Kurt is living off of Ambien and coffee. And Carole’s lasagna, when she badgers him into eating it. He has these nightmares he can’t really remember, other than a flash of a room with dirty white walls, just tall enough to stand in, no windows, no doors, and a dim, blinky bulb the only source of light. It’s enough to make him retch, when he wakes up.  
  
The kids aren’t handling it well. They pick at their food. Hepburn wakes up crying in the middle of the night, and Tracy has gone practically mute. They go to each other for comfort, or to their grandparents. They tip-toe around Kurt.  
  
He’s not being a good father. He knows that. He can’t be what they need.  
  
He thinks about spending the next fifty years feeling like this, cored and shriveled, and reaching, always reaching for something that won’t ever be there. He thinks about the alternative.  
  
He isn’t that selfish. He won’t let his parents lose both of their children. He won’t let his children lose both of their parents. But he thinks about it.  
  
&&&&&  
  
It’s been three weeks.   
  
Rachel is over almost every day, looking at him with eyes that are so understanding he can’t try to meet them.   
  
Blaine’s parents call every evening to Skype with their grandchildren. Cooper is there, with them. His smile is too bright. It doesn’t mask the grayness of his complexion.  
  
Sam has started badgering him for permission to start planning the funeral, and Cooper keeps sending him links to venues, each more lavish and lovely than the last. _I’ll pay for it_ , he says. _My brother should have the best_.  
  
Kurt ignores them.  
  
Brittany comes over for lunch, one day. He doesn’t talk, and neither does she. She sits with him and eats grapes from a bowl. When it’s time to leave, she leans up to kiss him on the forehead and pulls him in for a tight, strong hug.  
  
“You’re still connected, you know,” she whispers.  
  
Kurt scoffs. It’s a choked-off sound, halfway to a sob.  
  
“Right. I’m thrilled to know he’s trapped in some netherworld, waiting for me to die.”  
  
She frowns.  
  
“Kurt, no. He’s here, at least a little bit.” She thumps him on the chest to emphasize her point.  
  
Kurt swallows. His fingers clench into fists.  
  
“I can’t feel him.”  
  
His voice is small, like a scared little boy. She smiles, soft and maternal.  
  
“Of course you can. The soul without the body, it’s – an echo, kind of. It’s not as strong, but just as real. You just have to find it.”  
  
“Don’t you think I’ve been trying?”  
  
She cocks her head in that fey way of hers, that way that tells Kurt she’s looking in him more than at him.  
  
“You’ve been screaming. You need to listen.”  
  
“What? I don’t – ”  
  
“It’s magic, Kurt. I can’t tell you everything.”  
  
She smiles again, and kisses him on the cheek, and then she’s gone.  
  
Kurt feels almost like he could cry.  
  
&&&&&  
  
He stays up until dawn, trying to figure out what she meant. He tries yoga, meditation, even music – he sits down at the piano and gets two measures into “Blackbird” before his fingers start to tremble too hard to play. Every time he looks inward, he’s brought up short by the black hole that’s formed at the heart of him, dark and dangerous and deafeningly silent.  
  
He falls asleep on the couch, to the insipid laugh track of an episode of _The Golden Girls_ he has stored on the DVR. It’s soothing.  
  
He dreams, he thinks, of Blaine’s laughing eyes.  
  
When he wakes, and he remembers, he hurls the remote against the wall so hard that the batteries bounce out.  
  
He would scream, but the kids are still asleep.  
  
&&&&&  
  
His dad tries to talk to him about grief counseling.   
  
Carole takes the kids to see a movie.   
  
Sam leaves him three voicemails.  
  
Kurt stares at the photos on their dresser until his eyes go blurry. He wears one of Blaine’s undershirts to bed. It doesn’t smell like him, but his pillow still does.  
  
It’s eight o’clock. Kurt is so exhausted, he doesn’t even take his pill.  
  
&&&&&  
  
He stirs. There are fingers combing through his hair. His heart gives a sweet, squeezing ache.  
  
“Blaine?” he murmurs.  
  
He hears a laugh – more, he _feels_ it. He feels…whole. His eyes shoot open.  
  
“Blaine,” he breathes. It’s the only word he knows.  
  
“I’m here,” says Blaine, gently. And he is. Real, and there, and pumping through Kurt’s blood.  
  
“Was it a dream?”  
  
Blaine’s eyes go sad. He looks away, then looks back.  
  
“This is a dream, sweetheart.”  
  
Kurt’s heart plunges.  
  
“But I can feel you.”  
  
Blaine smiles, again.  
  
“I know.”  
  
And then Kurt looks, really looks, and he sees what he missed, before. They’re in a grassy meadow, on a red and white checked blanket. There’s a picnic basket, too, one that Kurt hasn’t seen since Blaine first moved to New York. The sun is shining cheerfully down on them, but Kurt can’t feel its warmth.  
  
Blaine is…different than he was when Kurt last saw him. Younger by a good 25 years, and sporting an ensemble that has long since been donated to Goodwill.   
  
His eyes, though, they’re just the same.  
  
“I missed you,” breathes Kurt.  
  
Blaine presses his lips together the way he does when he’s trying not to cry.  
  
“I missed you, too.” He brings a hand up to cup Kurt’s cheek. Kurt can feel it, solid and warm and just exactly right. “I’ve been looking for you.”  
  
“ _Blaine_.”  
  
Blaine takes it as it was meant, as a plea, and he pulls Kurt to him hard enough that they crash before they kiss, laughing and breathless and toppling to the ground.  
  
They end up on their sides, hands clasped between them, looking their fill.  
  
“How are you so young?” says Kurt, with a giddy, teasing grin. Blaine raises his eyebrows in surprise, glances briefly down at his own body.  
  
“Just lucky, I guess.”  
  
“And here I thought you were going to age gracefully.”  
  
Blaine’s smile goes tight. Kurt remembers. He clutches at Blaine’s hand so hard his knuckles go white.  
  
“I don’t have a body anymore, Kurt. You see me how you want to see me.”  
  
“Blaine, please – are you – you feel _real_ , to me.”  
  
“I am.”  
  
“This isn’t just a dream?”  
  
“It’s not just anything.”  
  
“Can you please stop talking in riddles? I want to understand.”  
  
Blaine looks at him for a moment before he responds, searching for the words.  
  
“I’m here. Really here, inside you, like I’ve always been. I honestly don’t know how I wandered into your dreams.”  
  
“I’m glad you did,” Kurt whispers.  
  
“Me, too.”  
  
“Will I be able to find you when I wake up?”  
  
Blaine swallows.  
  
“I hope so.”  
  
Kurt kisses him once, then twice, and then again, and the world goes black, and he wakes up alone.  
  
&&&&&  
  
He calls Sam. They start planning the service.  
  
&&&&&  
  
It’s music, this time, that brings him to the surface. He blinks his eyes open, then closes them again, content to drift for a moment on the soft ebb and flow of the piano.  
  
“It’s been a while since you played for me,” he says. The sound trails off, and he opens his eyes.  
  
Blaine has turned around on the bench, his face positively shining with love, enough to fill Kurt up to the brim.  
  
“Dream me up a piano, and I’ll play for you every night.”  
  
“You promise?”  
  
Blaine’s smile twinges sad.  
  
“Every night that I can.” He comes to Kurt, where he’s reclined on the couch. “Scooch,” he murmurs warmly.  
  
Kurt nestles back against the rather hard leather cushions until Blaine has room enough to tangle his body with Kurt’s. Kurt can feel Blaine’s heartbeat, steady and strong, and the thrum of him singing through his bones. He presses a kiss to the top of Blaine’s head, the nearest part of him to Kurt’s mouth. His nose breaks up the neat comb of Blaine’s hair.  
  
“Can you stay with me, this time?” he whispers.  
  
“As long as you want.”  
  
“Don’t tempt me. I might just never wake up.”  
  
“Planning to pull a Rip Van Winkle on me, are you? Honestly, I’m not sure you could rock that beard.”  
  
“I’m pretty sure no one can rock that beard, honey. Except maybe Dumbledore.”  
  
“And Gandalf.”  
  
“And Gandalf.”  
  
Blaine sighs happily, and burrows himself closer.  
  
“I like the choice of location, by the way.”  
  
His tone is teasing, but, honestly, Kurt doesn’t know why. He hasn’t registered where they are, or much of anything beyond the man in his arms. He looks.  
  
“I guess I was feeling nostalgic.”  
  
“It isn’t quite the same without the swarm of choir boys in matching blazers.”  
  
“I don’t know, I always liked it best when it was just the two of us.”  
  
Blaine smiles. Kurt traces the shape of it with his fingers. Blaine kisses them with a wet smack that sets Kurt laughing fondly, then gathers them up with his own and settles their hands in the scant space between their chests.  
  
“I kissed you for the first time in this room.”  
  
“You proposed to me just down the hall.”  
  
“You said yes.”  
  
“Guess you’re stuck with me.”  
  
Blaine stiffens. It would be imperceptible if Kurt weren’t holding him so close, or if he didn’t know Blaine’s body so very completely. A trickle of cold starts slowly down his spine.  
  
“What?” he whispers.  
  
“It’s nothing.”  
  
It’s not. But Kurt knows him, knows when to push, and when to file it away for later.  
  
“Okay,” he says.  
  
Blaine shifts, and he kisses the side of Kurt’s throat, where the pulse beats strong beneath his fragile skin.  
  
They hold each other. They breathe. They feel.  
  
“How are the kids?” says Blaine, eventually, breaking the silence.   
  
Kurt swallows.  
  
“Heartbroken.”  
  
Blaine shudders. It shakes Kurt’s body, too. They share a throb of yearning.  
  
“Tell them I love them?”  
  
Kurt nods, fiercely, unable to trust his voice.   
  
“They know,” he whispers.  
  
“Tell them anyway.”  
  
Kurt’s fingers are digging into Blaine, now, as if he could take him back from this dream world if he holds on tight enough. It’s probably painful, but Blaine makes no complaint.  
  
They don’t say another word. They stay until they can’t.  
  
&&&&&  
  
“How are you doing, kid? You seem…lighter.”  
  
Kurt looks up at his dad, surprised. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms folded over his chest, eyes compassionate and searching. Kurt closes the dishwasher with a bump of the hip. He hesitates.  
  
It’s not so much that he thinks his dad won’t believe him – dream-talking isn’t entirely unheard of, after all, even if it is rare amongst the non-magical masses. It’s just – it feels private. Precious. He’s not sure he wants anyone to know.  
  
“It’s been a month,” he says. “I have to start functioning sometime.”  
  
His dad nods, slowly, like he doesn’t really believe him.  
  
“You were humming.”  
  
Kurt blinks. He didn’t notice. He’s had that song stuck in his head since he woke up. He doesn’t even know what it’s called.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Talk to me, Kurt.”  
  
“I – ” He stops. He isn’t ready. “I had a dream about him, last night.”  
  
His dad’s expression melts into a smile, soft and bittersweet.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“It was nice.”  
  
He looks away.  
  
“I’m glad.” His dad clears his throat. “Say hi to him for me next time, will you?”  
  
Kurt smiles. His dad his humoring him – he doesn’t get it, not really. But that doesn’t make the sentiment any less sweet.  
  
“Of course.”  
  
His dad ambles over, claps him on the shoulder.  
  
“It’s good to see you’re still in there.”  
  
Kurt thinks, _You have no idea_.  
  
&&&&&  
  
He opens his eyes. He’s in a hallway, and he’s alone.   
  
He panics.  
  
 _No_.  
  
He knows where he is, he does, but Blaine isn’t here, he isn’t here, and Kurt has been wrung out, today, wrung dry of anything and everything but the persistent ache of heartsickness. He can’t think like this, can’t do anything but run down that familiar hall and fling open the door.  
  
 _Nonononononono, please no, please_ – oh.  
  
Blaine is there by the bed, in an undershirt and tight jeans, with his hair ruffled the way it gets when Kurt runs his hands through it, or when Blaine isn’t careful enough pulling his shirt over his head.   
  
Kurt is still in black.  
  
He stands there in the open doorway, and he gawks, because he brought home an urn full of ash, today, that they said was Blaine’s body.  
  
“Kurt?” says Blaine, hesitantly, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal.  
  
With his eyes wide like that, standing half-dressed and vulnerable beside the bed where they lost their virginity, he could be 17 again.  
  
“ _Blaine_.”  
  
His eyes go knowing, and soft, and that’s him, that’s his Blaine, in front of Kurt and in every lit-up corner of his heart.  
  
“Come here,” murmurs Blaine. He opens his arms in invitation, and Kurt is in them in a heartbeat.  
  
Blaine looks young, but his arms are strong and his grip sure, and it’s Kurt that feels like a child right now. He’s safe, and warm, and still so scared, and he lets himself unspool the way he hasn’t all day. And then he’s shaking, and he’s sobbing, and he can hardly catch his breath, and Blaine is rubbing his back in the way that only Blaine does, and –   
  
“They were saying goodbye to you, Blaine, they were saying goodbye, but I couldn’t, because you’re here and I knew you’d be here. But then I opened my eyes, and you weren’t – you never aren’t there, and you weren’t, and I thought you were – I thought you’d left, I thought you were gone, I thought you were lost out there, where I can’t find you, and I didn’t even say _goodbye_.”  
  
He doesn’t know what he’s saying, just letting it spill out to mix with the tears and the snot and the broken sounds he makes when he tries to gasp air through the painful swelling in his throat.  
  
He cried today, trickles of tears slipping down from the corner of his eye that he couldn’t control. It was nothing like this.  
  
Blaine is still holding him close, and rubbing his back, and whispering soothing things like, “I’m sorry I scared you,” and “I’m here.”  
  
Soon enough, the storm calms, the tears stop coming, and Kurt feels washed clean.  
  
It isn’t enough.  
  
He lifts his head off of Blaine’s shoulder, wipes the worst of the tears off his cheeks with the swipe of a hand. Blaine slides his hands up from Kurt’s back to cup his face. Kurt closes his eyes. Blaine runs his thumbs gently over Kurt’s damp eyelashes.  
  
“It was awful,” says Kurt, voice still strangled. He gives a hard sniff.  
  
“I know.”  
  
Blaine’s hands disappear, and Kurt’s eyes flutter open. Blaine grips the bottom of his shirt and strips it off. He offers it to Kurt.  
  
“Seriously? You’re pulling out the _Twilight_ moves?”  
  
Blaine smiles, and Kurt does, too. The tear tracks are starting to dry on his face, and they pull at his skin as it stretches.  
  
“I though you would want to clean up. The shirt was getting a little uncomfortable anyway.”  
  
“I suppose I have already ruined it.”  
  
“It’s okay. It’s not real.”  
  
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
Kurt takes the shirt from Blaine’s hands and mops up the mess on his face. It’s about as good as it’s going to get without soap and water. He tosses the shirt in what he knows is the direction of the hamper. Blaine is watching him, patiently.  
  
“Admit it,” says Kurt, a smile playing at his lips. “You just wanted me to see this.” He runs a hand down Blaine’s chest and down to the contours of his abdomen, muscle and flesh and, god, so beautiful. He’s always been beautiful.  
  
Blaine laughs. Kurt can feel it, in his blood and beneath his fingers.  
  
“I may have wanted to see it myself – I haven’t had a body like this in about 20 years.”  
  
“Thank god. You would have given me a complex.”  
  
Kurt tears his eyes away from the narrowing of Blaine’s waist to smile at him warmly. Blaine returns it, his eyes like melting honey in the lamplight.  
  
“I wish I could have been there, today,” he says. His smile goes sad. Kurt’s does, too. His hands find Blaine’s.  
  
“You would have loved it. Everyone was wearing a bow tie, even Hepburn. There was music, and dancing, and tearful speeches about how wonderful you are.”  
  
Blaine squeezes his hands.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Sam’s was my favorite. He made everyone laugh, even if he was kind of a wreck, after. Cooper started out okay, but he only made it about a third of the way through. Tracy got up and finished it for him.”  
  
“She did?”  
  
“You would have been really proud of her.”  
  
Blaine’s eyes are shining, now, with pride and unshed tears.  
  
“My brave girl.”  
  
“The whole thing, it was – it was so beautiful, and so fitting, and the room was just filled to the brim with love for you, but I – _you_ weren’t there, Blaine, and I couldn’t – it was _awful_.”   
  
“I’m here, now.”  
  
“I know, I know, I know.”  
  
He can feel the tears rising up, again, but that isn’t what he wants. He feels – he needs – he looks at Blaine, looks into his eyes, and he sees there that same desperate, unnamable hunger. He’s here, he is, Kurt can feel it, but it isn’t enough.  
  
“Blaine,” he whispers, and the message must be clear, because they’re surging together in the blink of an eye.  
  
He winds his arms around Blaine’s neck, to hold him close as can be as their mouths move together. Blaine is scrabbling at Kurt’s clothes – his tie, and his belt, and the buttons on his shirt, moving from one to the next like he can’t decide which should come off first. Kurt brings his arms down reluctantly, and helps, shucking his suit jacket carelessly to the floor, and then his shirt, and then he reaches down to fumble with the button of Blaine’s jeans.  
  
Soon enough, they’re skin to skin. Kurt finally feels like he can breathe, but, still, it isn’t enough.  
  
“Come on,” he murmurs. He grabs Blaine’s hand and tugs him across the scant three feet to the bed. He looks at Blaine, up and down, and Blaine is looking at him, too. The amber of his eyes has been eaten almost entirely by the dilation of his pupils. Everything in him is pulled, and reaching, and then they’re falling onto the bed, and Blaine is everywhere, and still –   
  
“I need you,” he whispers, between harsh breaths. Blaine is mouthing at his throat, like he’s about to plunge his canines into an artery. The sound comes out half-way to a whimper.  
  
Blaine moves back up, meets Kurt’s eyes.  
  
“You’ve got me.”  
  
He finds Kurt’s mouth, again, and Kurt wraps his legs around him, drawing him closer, closer, can never be close enough, and then they’re pressed hot and hard together, shocks tripping through their bodies with every shift and every rut.  
  
“Blaine,” he gasps. “I want – ”  
  
“I know.”  
  
He grasps one of Kurt’s hands in his, and reaches down with the other.  
  
“No,” says Kurt, wild with his need and with Blaine’s, and entirely sure.  
  
“It’s been six weeks, Kurt.”  
  
“Our bodies aren’t real. It doesn’t matter.”  
  
Blaine’s nostrils flare, and he thrashes, inside, and then they’re kissing, and shifting, and he’s – oh, he’s _there_ , and it’s a nudge, and then a push, and then Kurt is digging his heels into the swell of Blaine’s ass, because he needs to feel him, all of him, as much of him as he can get inside his body. Blaine is making these breathy little moaning sounds that barely echo the pleasure Kurt can feel swelling up inside and sparking off of his own, and their mouths are still together, mingling and frozen with the shock of it.  
  
And then they move, as much as they can when every particle of their bodies is howling to stay close, close, closer. Kurt starts babbling, he knows he does, and he has no awareness of what he’s saying, at all. He doesn’t know anything but Blaine, and the feeling of him deep inside his body.  
  
Blaine is smothering his face with kisses, and his neck, and he’s making those sounds, god. He’s there, everywhere, flooding the dead spaces between one molecule and the next with heat and light and _him_ until Kurt is sure he’ll overflow with it. There’s too much, it’ll burst through his pores and burn him to ash.  
  
Eventually, Blaine’s kisses become more frantic, his movements sharper, and then, god, oh, god, something bursts, and molten lava is pumping out from Kurt’s heart and into his veins. It’s too much and not quite enough, scorching and sweet and nearly painful.   
  
Blaine is panting against his neck and gone soft inside, but Kurt keeps him there with the press of his legs.  
  
“I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart,” Blaine murmurs into his skin.  
  
Kurt takes Blaine’s face in his hands, and he looks at him a moment, at the color in his cheeks and the glossy sheen of his blissed-out eyes, and the edge of hunger that Kurt knows is from him.  
  
“Kiss me,” he says, urgently.  
  
Blaine smiles, and he complies. Slow and languid, this time, and filling him so full with love. They move, just a little, just enough to make sparks of friction between their skin.  
  
Kurt feels them, every one, zipping diamond-bright down his nerves until he’s lit up like a newborn star. And then Blaine’s mouth stills. He presses his forehead to Kurt’s, and he opens his eyes, and Kurt can see it there, too, the starlight. They move, together, just once more, and it’s a supernova.   
  
It explodes through their bodies. Shards of brilliance ricochet between them like shrapnel. They cling together until it’s settled, pressing bruises that they’ll never feel into each other’s skin.  
  
They’re left shaking when it’s over, when their blood is humming and their bones are buzzing and their muscles may as well be made of molasses. They slump into each other, Blaine burrowing into Kurt’s neck and Kurt’s fingers snaking up into his hair, keeping him there.  
  
“Don’t go,” whispers Kurt.  
  
“Never,” says Blaine.  
  
And there, with the full weight of him pressing Kurt into the bed, Kurt believes it.  
  
&&&&&  
  
He feels it for a moment as he’s reaching full consciousness, just before he opens his eyes. He feels – connected. He feels _Blaine_.  
  
It fades quickly, but it’s enough for him to know.  
  
He’s _there_.  
  
&&&&&  
  
The funeral is a turning point. Kurt goes back to work, and he goes back to parenting. He makes dinner every night, and he talks to his kids, and they start bringing their grief to him, to share.  
  
His dad and Carole go back home, though they’ve started making noises about selling the house and moving to upstate New York – the perfect distance for weekend visits.  
  
Rachel makes sure he’s never wanting for company, when he needs it. She asks him sometimes about cleaning out Blaine’s closet and boxing up his things – always very gently – but he shuts down those conversations before they can gather steam. He knows she thinks it’s unhealthy, they all do, but he doesn’t particularly care.  
  
He sees Blaine nearly every night, in his dreams.  
  
He doesn’t need to let go.  
  
&&&&&  
  
“Where do you go, anyway? When you’re not with me.”  
  
They’re in the living room of their first New York apartment, leaning against the couch with their legs stretched out in front of them and their feet nudging beneath the coffee table. Blaine looks around 30 or so, just around the age he was when Hepburn was born. He looks at Kurt, thoughtful.  
  
“The waiting room, I suppose.”  
  
“Well, yeah, but – I mean, what’s it like?”  
  
“It’s – weird. It feels like a dream world, you know? It’s always shifting, and changing, and nothing really makes sense.”  
  
“What do you do all day?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Kurt levels him a look, unimpressed, and Blaine rolls his eyes. “Really. It’s like waking up, when I come here – ”  
  
“Ironic.”  
  
Blaine laughs.  
  
“I suppose so. It all goes kind of blurry, and jumbled, and the more I think about it, the worse it gets. Like when you used to mumble about turnips for half the night and then have no idea what I was talking about when I asked you about it the next morning.”   
  
Kurt knocks his shoulder into Blaine’s.  
  
“I’m still not convinced you weren’t making that up.”  
  
“I definitely would have come up with something better.”  
  
Kurt smiles, teasing.  
  
“Yeah? Like what?”  
  
“Like – moaning my name for half the night.”  
  
Blaine grins wickedly, and Kurt laughs. He can’t help it.  
  
“See, now that I would believe.”  
  
He rubs a hand over Blaine’s thigh, affectionately, and leaves it there to rest. Blaine’s hand comes up to cover it. He kisses Kurt on the cheek, silly and smacking. Kurt laughs, again, dangerously close to giggling, and turns to plant one on Blaine’s smiling lips.  
  
“So,” says Kurt, after a moment of self-indulgent staring. “Do you just, like, wait there until dream time?”  
  
 “Kind of. People come through, sometimes, but they don’t usually stop to talk.”  
  
“That sounds horrible.”  
  
“It’s not so bad. I can feel you, still. That part’s nice.”  
  
Kurt shifts until he can lean his head against Blaine’s shoulder. Blaine’s arm settles, secure around his waist.  
  
“I don’t like the thought of you out there, all alone.”  
  
“I’m not.”  
  
Kurt laces their fingers, and he wishes they could wake up together.  
  
&&&&&  
  
Time passes. Life continues. The kids grow, and Kurt’s hair goes grayer and grayer. He lets it, happy for the reminder.  
  
Tracy starts dating, and driving, and in the blink of an eye, it seems, she’s out of the house and off to the city for college.  
  
Hepburn gets taller and taller, and clumsier, too, as he tries to get used to limbs that always seem to be longer than he expects them to be. His voice starts to crack, and then to deepen. He comes to Kurt for dating advice, which Blaine finds deeply amusing.  
  
“He is aware that our relationship was built on a foundation of public serenades, isn’t he?”  
  
“I presume so, yes. Your point?”  
  
“I wouldn’t have thought that was his kind of thing.”  
  
“I wouldn’t be so sure – he is our son.”  
  
Blaine smiles, but he’s sad. Kurt can tell. It happens a lot when they talk about the kids.  
  
Tracy thrives at school. She declares a Linguistics major and starts playing her music in coffee shops.   
  
Hepburn goes through a rebellious phase that mostly seems to involve a tasteful cartilage piercing and a whole lot of black eyeliner. He applies to half a dozen west coast schools and gets a scholarship to UCLA.  
  
And then, suddenly, the house is empty.  
  
Kurt spends most of his time asleep.  
  
&&&&&  
  
“Rachel’s been trying to set me up.”  
  
Blaine looks over at him, brow furrowed. He’s got pink in his cheeks from the crisp autumn air and a hand clasped with Kurt’s. His eyes are especially golden in the warm, dappled light.   
  
He’s older, today, maybe five years younger than he was when he died. He’s wearing a scarf that’s still there, in Kurt’s bottom drawer.  
  
“Like – on a date?”  
  
“It’s this guy who starred with her in _Gypsy_ a couple years ago. He recently got divorced, so of course Rachel’s Yente senses are tingling.”  
  
Kurt rolls his eyes, smiling, but Blaine still has that wrinkle between his eyebrows.  
  
“Are you going to go?”  
  
Kurt stops and turns sharply to look him in the eye. His hand clutches at Blaine’s of its own free will.  
  
“No! Of course not.”  
  
Blaine searches his eyes for a moment, and Kurt feels wrong-footed – he hates more than _anything_ when he doesn’t know what Blaine is thinking.  
  
Blaine looks away.  
  
“Maybe you should.”  
  
“Blaine, what are you – I couldn’t – I – I don’t understand where this is coming from.”  
  
Blaine squeezes his hand and looks up at him again.  
  
“You’ve been spending a lot of time here, Kurt,” he says gently.  
  
“Of course I have.”  
  
“I just – I wonder if it’s healthy. For either of us.”  
  
“You think spending time with me is _unhealthy_?”  
  
Blaine’s eyes flash. He lets go of Kurt’s hand and crosses his arms over his chest.  
  
“No, I think you giving up on your life is unhealthy.”  
  
“I haven’t _given up_ on anything except for the _Project Runway_ reruns in my DVR.”  
  
Blaine raises his eyebrows, incredulous.  
  
“You told me yourself you hadn’t seen Rachel in a month.”  
  
“I’ve been busy.”  
  
“And yet you manage to make time to sleep more than twelve hours a day.”  
  
“I make time for _you_. I thought that would make you happy.”  
  
He can feel his tone sharpening, but he’s powerless to stop it. He’s not sure he wants to. Blaine is looking at him in a way that feels entirely foreign, and there’s something in him that’s starting to panic.  
  
“Of course it does, Kurt, you know that. I _always_ want to see you. But it also – I mean, I – I’m – ”  
  
“What?”  
  
Blaine hesitates. He steels himself.  
  
“This isn’t _real_. I’m not real.”  
  
“Yes – you _are_. Why would you even _say_ that?”  
  
“You have my body in an urn that you keep in your bedroom, Kurt. When I wake up, and I leave here, I don’t have a job, or friends, or family. I can’t tease Cooper about his latest Viagra campaign, or sing karaoke duets with Rachel, or talk Sam down from the ledge when he realizes his comb-over isn’t fooling anyone. I can’t hug my parents, or my kids, or cheer them on, or cheer them up, or be there for them at _all_. You are the _only_ thing I have left.”  
  
He’s pleading, with his eyes and in Kurt’s blood, and Kurt hates hearing this. He hates it.  
  
“I still don’t un – ”  
  
“You’re _alive_ , Kurt. You have _everything_ , and I’m not going to just sit back while you toss it aside like it doesn’t matter.”  
  
Kurt looks away, now, can’t keep looking into those expressive eyes. He breathes in deep and breathes back out, trying to get a hold on his juvenile urge to lash out.  
  
“I don’t have everything,” he says, quietly. “Do you really think I’d be here every night if I did?”  
  
“Kurt – ”  
  
“The house is empty, and it’s awful, and you’re there, everywhere, and I – I just – most of the time I feel like I don’t have _anything_.”  
  
Blaine softens. His hands drop, but he makes no move to take Kurt’s.  
  
“You can’t keep hiding here with me.”  
  
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”  
  
It’s a sad attempt at a tease. His voice cracks wetly, and Blaine looks devastated.  
  
“Kurt, no, of _course_ I’m not. But you’re alive. You need to live. And I’m starting to think maybe I do, too. You know, in the loose sense of the word.”  
  
“What does that even mean?”  
  
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll figure it out.”  
  
Blaine smiles, in this weird, sad, final kind of way. He feels suddenly far away, even though he hasn’t moved an inch. He’s pulled back, and it’s wrong, and everything in Kurt is straining to reach him. His hands twitch at his sides.  
  
“I don’t understand what’s going on here.”  
  
“I think we need to take some time away.”  
  
“You mean apart.”  
  
Blaine looks down, a flinch. He’s steady when he meets Kurt’s eyes again.  
  
“Just until we’re stable enough that we don’t need to use each other as a crutch.”  
  
“No. That’s ridiculous, no. We’re not doing that.”  
  
“We need to do something.”  
  
“But _why_?”  
  
“Because we’re not _happy_!”  
  
Kurt blinks. He swallows. He reaches, helpless.  
  
“I’m happy when I’m with you.”  
  
Blaine steps closer, then, and cups Kurt’s face in his hands. They’re warm against the cool skin of Kurt’s cheeks, and solid as an anchor. A greedy thrum runs up and down Kurt’s body in the places they’re connected.  
  
“You know that’s not good enough.”  
  
“Blaine – ”  
  
“I can’t feel you anymore, when we’re apart.”  
  
It’s painful, as if the words were ripped right out of Blaine’s chest. There are tears glimmering on the surface of his eyes and trembling in his voice. Kurt’s own breath shudders out of him.  
  
“I never could,” he whispers.  
  
“I know.”  
  
Blaine kisses him, swift and soft, and steps back.  
  
“I’ll be here in a nanosecond if you need me,” he promises, voice working hard to remain steady.  
  
“I always need you.”  
  
Blaine swallows. Kurt can see it – there’s a moment when he wavers.  
  
But it’s only a moment.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says, and then he’s gone.  
  
&&&&&  
  
He looks for Blaine the next night. He searches, and calls for him, and screams. He sits, and he waits.  
  
Blaine never comes.  
  
Kurt calls in sick. He goes back to bed, and he tries again.  
  
He wakes up at dinner time, with tears on his cheeks and a hole in his heart.  
  
&&&&&  
  
He doesn’t know what to do. He spends the weekend on his couch, flipping through old photos on his laptop, watching the two of them get older and older, brooding over the light in his own smile and unable to stop tracing the lines of Blaine’s dear face with his eyes. The last one is from Hepburn’s birthday party, a week before –   
  
Hepburn has his arms squeezed tightly around his father’s waist, delight at the video game console he just unwrapped overriding his preteen awkwardness at showing his parents affection. The grin on Blaine’s face as he looks down at his son could illuminate the world. Hepburn has a copy of this photo in his dorm room. Kurt stares at it for half an hour.  
  
He moves on to videos, next. Performances dating back to their first Sectionals together, vacation footage from their pre-kids trip to London and their post-kids trip to LA, home movies documenting Tracy and Hepburn’s early childhood, the silly Vines Blaine made with Sam when they were in college and the one he and Kurt made together when they were drunk one New Year’s Eve – everything and anything that Kurt can find.   
  
He saves their soul-tying ceremony for last.  
  
He’s aching by the end of it, his throat swollen so badly that the screams die silent in his lungs. He’s angry, and he’s hollow, god, so hollow – alone and empty and carved up, and it’s not fair.  
  
 _Do I need you enough now, Blaine?_  
  
He takes his Ambien, Sunday night. He just wants to escape. The only image he remembers from his dreams is a hand – his, maybe? – reaching out and closing around nothing.  
  
&&&&&  
  
It’s been a week. Rachel calls, but he doesn’t answer. He blames her, even if it isn’t entirely rational.  
  
He can’t do this anymore.  
  
He packs an overnight bag, and he drives the hour and a half it takes to get to his dad’s.  
  
&&&&&  
  
His father has gone stoop-backed, and his hearing isn’t what it used to be, but his mind is just as sharp. He still makes Kurt feel safe when he wraps him up in a hug.  
  
“Well, this is a surprise,” he says. His smile is huge, but Kurt can tell he’s being scrutinized.  
  
“I needed to get away,” says Kurt, offering his own smile. It’s stiff, he can feel that, but the relief in it is entirely genuine.  
  
Carole descends on him, too, kissing his cheeks and fussing like he’s her grandchild and not her stepson. He helps her with lunch while his dad watches ESPN in the living room. It feels like high school all over again – he almost expects to hear Finn’s footsteps thunking down the stairs.  
  
They eat at the dining room table. Kurt updates them on the kids, and work, and his dad updates him on his health (“Heart good, PSA good, joints bad”). Carole spills the latest neighborhood gossip, and Kurt helps her accessorize the outfit she’s put together for her great-niece’s wedding.  
  
It’s all very light, and fun, and exactly the kind of distraction Kurt needed.  
  
And yet, Kurt can tell his dad is biding his time. It’s in the way he looks at Kurt out of the corner of his eye when the conversation lags, like he’s checking on him, or trying to figure him out.  
  
It isn’t until that night, when Carole has retreated to the bedroom and it’s just the two of them, sitting on the couch in front of a football game, Kurt thumbing through an old edition of Vogue Paris, that his father makes his move. He picks up the remote and puts the television on mute.  
  
“So,” he says. “What’s up with you?”  
  
Kurt considers feigning ignorance, but it would be fruitless. He sighs. He sets his magazine on the coffee table.  
  
“Can I ask you something?”  
  
“You can ask me anything.”  
  
“Have you ever, you know, dreamed about Mom?”  
  
His dad looks at him strangely, like this wasn’t what he was expecting to hear.  
  
“I used to, all the time. Not so much anymore. They’re always good dreams.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“It’s nice to see her face sometimes, even if it is only in my head.” Kurt averts his eyes, quickly, but not quickly enough to stop his dad from seeing his reaction. “Have you been dreaming about Blaine or something?”  
  
Kurt nods, slowly. He can feel his father’s sharp, sympathetic gaze, but he can’t bear to look.  
  
“I see him every night,” he whispers. “Or, saw, I suppose. I saw him every night.”  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“We got in a fight.”  
  
“You what? What are you – Kurt, would you look at me, kid?”  
  
Kurt looks up. His dad is confused, the furrow deep in his brow, but he’s waiting patiently. Kurt’s fragile defenses crack as easily as the shell of an egg.  
  
“He’s gone, Dad. It was the only place I could find him, and he’s gone, and I don’t – I don’t know what to do.”  
  
He can feel himself verging on hysteria. His dad must sense it, too, because he plants a steady, anchoring hand on Kurt’s shoulder.  
  
“You’ve been dream-talking?”  
  
“Since before the funeral.”  
  
“And you never said anything?”  
  
“You never told me when you dreamed about Mom.”  
  
“That’s different. That’s just a bunch of memories blenderized by my brain while I sleep. It isn’t _real_ or anything.”  
  
Kurt winces.  
  
 _I’m not real_.  
  
His dad is looking at him expectantly.  
  
“It felt like something private. It wasn’t something I wanted to share.”  
  
“So why now?”  
  
“Because I can’t find him, and time passes differently there, and what if that was the last time I see him at all until I _die_? I – Dad, I couldn’t – ”  
  
“Hey, it’s okay,” says his dad, grip tightening around Kurt’s shoulder. He looks Kurt in the eye and waits for his breathing to calm. “I may not know the first thing about soulmates, but I know Blaine. He won’t leave you, if he can possibly help it. He just won’t.”  
  
Tears leak out of Kurt’s eyes at the corners, but he gets hold of himself before he can devolve into a sobbing mess. He shakes his head.  
  
“No,” he bites out. “This is just like him – he always runs away.”   
  
The bitterness almost feels good. It makes him feel stronger, at least. His dad watches him with patient eyes.  
  
“He always comes back,” he says.  
  
Kurt looks away. He has to.  
  
“But what if he doesn’t?”  
  
“He will.”  
  
His dad is sure, his tone final.  
  
Kurt shifts until he can rest his head on his dad’s still-sturdy shoulder, like he did when he was a little boy missing his mommy. It’s hell on his back, and his neck, but it gives him comfort all the same.  
  
“He thinks I’ve given up,” he says.  
  
“On what?”  
  
“I don’t know. Life, I guess.”  
  
“Have you?”  
  
Kurt opens his mouth. He pauses. He reconsiders.  
  
“Maybe a little.”  
  
“I just figured it was a touch of empty nest syndrome.”  
  
“That certainly doesn’t help.”  
  
They sit in comfortable silence for a while – so long, in fact, that Kurt is fairly certain his father has dozed off. He feels more than hears his father clear his throat, and he starts.  
  
“So, what are you going to do about it?”  
  
“I don’t know. Blaine seems to think I should be dating.”  
  
He’s scoffing, but he also kind of wants to cry.  
  
“Sounds like you think that’s a dumb idea.”  
  
“It’s not dumb – it’s preposterous. Blaine is my husband. He’s my _soulmate_. Even if he was gone, really gone, for good, I could never – the _thought_ of – it’s not happening. No offense.”  
  
His dad chuckles.  
  
“None taken. Hell, I felt the same way until I met Carole.”  
  
“If you’re going to try to convince me that I just need to give it time – ”  
  
“Wait a second, now, I never said that. Don’t go putting words in my mouth.”  
  
Kurt bites down on the retort that’s sitting behind his teeth.  
  
“Sorry,” he says instead.  
  
“I get that things are different for you. I respect that. But – ”  
  
“Oh, god, I knew there was going to be a ‘but.’”  
  
“ _But_ I think he may have a point.”  
  
Kurt sits up, stalk straight, and shoots his dad a glare that his sixteen-year-old self would have been proud of.  
  
“ _What_? Did you not listen to a word I just said?”  
  
“Yeah, I did, and no, I don’t need my hearing aid checked. Just hear me out.”  
  
Kurt slumps back against the sofa cushion.  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“Do I think you need to get out into the middle-aged widower dating pool? No. Do I think you could stand to get out of the house a little more? Hell, yeah.”  
  
“It’s not that simple.”  
  
“Well, then, explain it to me.”  
  
Kurt is silent for a moment, thinking. He’s not sure he can explain it, at least not in a way that makes sense. He’s never had to, before, not even to himself.  
  
“It’s – Blaine and I had plans,” he says, finally. “We used to talk about it all the time, you know? What we would do with our lives once the kids were out of the house.”  
  
“I’m familiar,” his dad says wryly.  
  
“We were going to travel – Paris first, because we’ve never been and that’s a travesty – and convert Tracy’s bedroom into a craft room, and take up swing dancing. And then, eventually, there would be weddings and grandchildren, and then retirement, and we’d have nothing in the world but time for each other.”  
  
“Sounds nice.”  
  
“And now it’s happened, and nothing is like we thought, and I’m not – I can’t be the person I thought I would be, and I don’t know who I _should_ be, and I don’t even know if I know who I _am_ when I’m not with him.”  
  
“You’re Kurt Hummel. No one tells you who you are but you.”  
  
“To be honest, I wish someone would.”  
      
“Nah. You’ll figure it out.”  
  
“That easy, huh?”  
  
“Nope. But you’ll do it anyway.”  
  
Kurt smiles. His head finds its way back to his dad’s shoulder.  
  
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”  
  
“Anytime, bud.”  
  
&&&&&  
  
He dreams of a frozen wasteland. He wakes up shivering.  
  
&&&&&  
  
Kurt’s weekend away is the kick in the ass he needed. His dad has always been particularly good at delivering those.  
  
Kurt makes theater dates with Rachel and lunch dates with Tracy, and he plans a trip to LA for the spring. He signs up for a pottery class on a whim, late one night when he can’t sleep and doesn’t particularly want to. He goes to the local animal shelter and gets a kitten, a tiny, bedraggled little thing with big golden eyes.  
  
He never planned on getting another pet after Goldie and Grayson passed away, though he knew Blaine would have insisted on getting a puppy, and Kurt would have put up only the most minimal of fights. But now…well, it’s nice to have another living being in the house. It’s nice to have something to care for.  
  
He names him Tony, and his heart melts every time he bumps his little head up against Kurt’s chin.  
  
He looks for Blaine every night.  
  
&&&&&  
  
It’s Saturday afternoon. Kurt and Tracy have just finished lunch, and he’s taking her shopping at their favorite thrift store in SoHo. It’s been a lovely day, and Kurt’s _happy_ , so much so that he almost doesn’t recognize the emotion when he feels it.  
  
He stops. They’re in the middle of a crowded sidewalk and people are giving him dirty looks, and Tracy has one worried hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t care. He barely notices. Because that, right there, that feeling like champagne bubbles in his blood – that’s _him_. That’s it, that’s joy, that’s what it feels like when Blaine sings. Kurt would recognize that anywhere. His knees are never the best, and now they’re starting to feel weak.  
  
“Pop? Are you – is it your heart? Do you need an ambulance?”  
  
Her voice is getting more and more frantic, and her grip tighter and tighter, and Kurt needs to snap out of it and stop scaring his daughter, but all he wants to do is laugh.  
  
“No,” he says. “No, I’m – it’s – I’m so much better than fine.” And then he does laugh, breathless and almost hysterical.  
  
“Pop?” Her voice is still so uncertain, and so is her face, when Kurt turns to look. She’s got a wrinkle between her eyebrows and worry in the set of her mouth, so Kurt smiles. He’s feeling wild, all of a sudden, and reckless, like it really is champagne in his veins.  
  
“It’s your dad,” he says.  
  
It takes a moment, but her expression shifts to wide-eyed disbelief. Her face is so open, her emotions always coming through so clear. Kurt is so very happy she got that from Blaine.  
  
“You mean – you – I didn’t know you could still – ”  
  
“I couldn’t, not really. Not like this.”  
  
He closes his eyes, and, god, he could cry, but he won’t.  
  
“Is – how is he?”  
  
Kurt’s smile broadens. He opens his eyes.  
  
“Good. Really good. Happy.”  
  
She laughs, helplessly, tears gleaming in her eyes.  
  
“Oh, my god.”  
  
It seems to be all she can say. She throws her arms around Kurt’s neck, and Kurt holds her close, like he did when she was a little girl and the world had been unfair. And, suddenly, he knows that he’s been selfish.  
  
“He misses you,” he whispers. “And he’s so, so proud.”  
  
“How do you know?” she whispers back.  
  
“I can feel it.”  
  
He’ll tell her, he decides. He’ll tell them both, when Hepburn is home. Now is not the time, but it will be. Soon.  
  
&&&&&  
  
Rachel gives him a pamphlet for a support group for widowed soulmates. He knows that it’s another not-so-subtle attempt to get him “back in the saddle,” but he takes her good intentions for what they are and doesn’t shove the pamphlet back in her face. He does roll his eyes, because he’s only human, but it’s actually – the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks it might be nice to spend some time around people who get it. He figures it’s worth a shot.  
  
They meet on Wednesdays, in a community center on Long Island. It’s mostly people closer to his dad’s age than his, but there are a few from the middle-aged set. There’s one young woman, Georgia, who can’t be older than 25.   
  
Kurt doesn’t talk much, but he listens closely. Everyone’s experience seems to be different. Sheryl was soul-tied on her sixteenth birthday and widowed at 84. She claims she can feel her Harry just as strongly as she did when he was alive (“He’s not the most patient man,” she says. “A little waiting will be good for him.”). Ben and his wife were soul-tied on their fifteenth anniversary, not nine months ago. He sees her face in dreams, he says, and hears her voice when he’s just on the verge of waking. There’s David, who’s been re-married for five years, and Kate, who’s been celibate since the day her Julie died.  
  
“Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with finding a little companionship,” pipes up Amy, a frail bird of a thing with a shock of white hair and sharp blue eyes behind her glasses. “We are still alive, after all. Might as well enjoy it.”  
  
She winks, and Kurt can’t help but blink in surprise, even as the room breaks out in titters.  
  
“But so are they,” says Georgia, quietly, cutting through the laughter. Her eyes are flashing, and her hands are clenched around the seat of her chair. “Part of them, at least. The most important part. They’re still with us.”  
  
Paul, the moderator, seems to sense that this is heading into dangerous territory. He straightens in his chair.  
  
“We all have different ways of dealing with the loss,” he says, placating. “No one way is better than any other.”  
  
Georgia sits carefully back in her chair, arms folded across her chest. Her expression is still stormy, but she doesn’t say another word.  
  
“Until recently, I spent more time with Blaine than with anybody else,” says Kurt. He didn’t plan on saying anything on the subject, but he can’t stand to see her silenced. She said the only thing he’s heard in this discussion that he could really relate to. “He wasn’t just a part of my life. He _was_ my life. It would feel like betrayal to even consider…” He waves his hand vaguely, hoping the message comes across.  
  
Georgia leans forward, eyes riveted to Kurt, dark hair swinging into her face. She brushes at it impatiently.  
  
“People don’t get it,” she says. “They keep telling me to move on and let go and, like, mourn the loss, but they don’t even understand that I haven’t lost him at all. He’s still here.” She pounds emphatically on her chest. “Where it counts. My family thinks I’m in denial, but they’re wrong. They’re the ones who refuse to see.”  
  
There’s silence for a long, stretched-out moment. Not even Paul seems to know what to say.  
  
David is the one who finally speaks up.  
  
“You know, it took me five years to realize there were things I needed that Claudia couldn’t give me. It’s a beautiful thing, to be connected to her, but it didn’t stop me from feeling lonely. With Miranda, I’m happy for the first time since Claudia died, and I know for a fact that she doesn’t begrudge me that.”  
  
“Hear, hear,” says Amy.  
  
Paul takes charge of the conversation from there, but Kurt tunes it out, considering. Georgia stays out of it, too.  
  
He approaches her, after the meeting.  
  
“Do you want to grab coffee?” he asks. “Talk?”  
  
She hesitates, eyes narrowed and searching his.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
She smiles, tentatively, and Kurt returns it.  
  
They end up at the corner deli, just at the end of the block. They chat for a bit, small talk of the getting-to-know-you sort, until they’ve settled at a table with their mugs.  
  
“Can I ask you something?” she says, her eyes wide and brown and focused intently on his.  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“When you said you used to see him all the time, did you mean – ?”  
  
“In dreams. We saw each other every night. Do you – ?”  
  
“No,” she says, quickly. “Nothing like that. I can feel him, though. And sometimes I hear his voice in my head. We have conversations.”  
  
Kurt raises his eyebrows in surprise.  
  
“Did you – I mean, was that something you could do before?”  
  
“No.” She huffs out a laugh, looks down at her mug. “You’re the first person I’ve told. I had a feeling you wouldn’t think I was crazy.”  
  
“No. Not crazy.”  
  
She looks up.  
  
“So, what happened, anyway?”  
  
“What, you mean how he – ?”  
  
“No. I mean, you can tell me that if you want to, but I meant…you said ‘used to.’ I guess I’m wondering why you don’t, anymore. If it’s not too personal.”  
  
It is, but Kurt senses there’s more than curiosity behind the question.  
  
“We had a fight. He thought I was throwing my life away, spending so much of it with him, and I thought it was the only way I could be happy. He decided we needed to spend some time apart.”  
  
The look in her eyes is heartbroken, understanding in a way that he can stomach.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Don’t be. I’m starting to think he has a point, even if I hate the way he’s making it. Then again, he’s always been into dramatic gestures.”  
  
She smiles. It lights up her entire face.  
  
“Michael, too. He proposed to me with a skywriter.”  
  
They stay at the deli for over an hour, exchanging stories. She loosens up, and she brightens, and Kurt can feel himself doing the same. It’s wonderful, the power of sharing these things with someone who understands.  
  
He feels it again, after they part ways, another of those champagne-bubble thrills in his blood. His heart speeds up, beating love and longing in double time. _Blaine, Blaine, Blaine_ , deep inside where it counts.  
  
That night, he doesn’t dream at all.  
  
&&&&&  
  
It’s the day after Thanksgiving. It’s been a month since he last saw Blaine, and nearly three since his family has been together, under one roof. Tony isn’t dealing too well with all of the extra people, but Kurt couldn’t be happier. He’s felt Blaine in the marrow of his bones since he woke up this morning.  
  
Today is the day, he decides. Once Tracy gets home from Black Friday shopping and Hepburn is done Skyping with his girlfriend, the three of them are going to have a talk they should have had years ago.  
  
He sits them down in the living room. His dad is upstairs taking a nap and Carole is in the kitchen heating leftovers for dinner, and they both know not to disturb them.  
  
He doesn’t quite know how to begin.  
  
“So, I have something I need to tell you,” he says.  
  
“You don’t have, like, cancer or something, do you?” says Hepburn, only partly joking. Tracy smacks his shoulder hard enough that he hisses.  
  
“No, god, no, nothing like that. I just – it’s something I should have told you a long time ago. It was unfair of me to hide it, and I’m sorry.”  
  
“Pop, come on. You’re doing that thing where you talk about the thing but you don’t actually tell us what the thing is.”  
  
Tracy smiles, teasing him, but Kurt can see her worry plain as day.   
  
He stops beating around the bush.  
  
He tells them everything – about Blaine, and the dreams, and why they’ve been put on pause. They’re both surprised but not shocked, and too happy to feel betrayed that Kurt kept it from them for so long.  
  
“Do you think – I mean, if he wanted, could he come visit me, too? In my dreams?”  
  
Hepburn says it, but Tracy looks hungry for the answer, too.  
  
“I don’t think so,” says Kurt, carefully. “If there was even a remote possibility, he would have found a way. He misses you both so much.”  
  
“We miss him, too,” chokes out Hepburn, voice nearly a whisper, eyes cast down at his knees. Tracy nods her agreement emphatically, tears starting to leak out of her eyes.  
  
“Can you tell him that for us?” she says. “Please?”  
  
Kurt swallows.  
  
“I’ll tell him anything you like.” _When he comes back to me_ , he adds silently.  
  
He holds out his arms, and they have a family hug that only needs an extra pair of arms to make it completely perfect.  
  
&&&&&  
  
“Jesus, how thirsty can you get?” says Santana, lip curled in distaste.  “I guess that’s what happens when you let your pussy dry up.” She flops inelegantly against the couch cushions, eyes glued to Norma Desmond mincing flirtatiously across the screen. She winces, a hand going automatically to her lower back. Rachel laughs and pokes Santana’s thigh with one outstretched toe.  
  
“I guess that’s what happens when you don’t.”  
  
Santana grins.  
  
“It was worth it, trust me.”  
  
They’re at Santana and Brittany’s place in Manhattan, partaking in one of the only traditions that’s remained sacred amongst the three of them – Black Friday Bonding, a.k.a. Help Me Escape My Football-Obsessed Family Via Red Wine And Classic Movies Night. They’ve reached the point in the night where they’ve had enough wine to loosen their tongues but not enough to unleash their drunk archetypes, which, they’ve long since found, are not at all complementary.  
  
“I feel sorry for her, honestly,” says Rachel, turning her attention back to the screen. “I mean, can you imagine trying to play the dating game, at our age? I’d be tempted to take on a gigolo myself.”  
  
She takes a prim sip of her wine. Kurt arches an eyebrow. There are too many layers of irony to count.  
  
“Well that definitely explains why you keep pushing me at every gay man in your acquaintance.”  
  
Rachel’s eyes go big and sad, and she reaches a hand out to pet his shoulder soothingly.  
  
“That’s different, Kurt. I hate to see you lonely.”  
  
“And clearly the only cure for that is a hot dick injection on the regular.”  
  
Santana smirks, self-satisfied, and Rachel tosses a pillow at her that only just misses the glass of wine she has perched on the end table.  
  
“Watch it!” snaps Santana. “If you stain my carpets, you’re paying the cleaning bill.”  
  
Rachel waves her off and turns back to Kurt.  
  
“Do you really think you’ll never want to date again? Like, never _ever_?”  
  
“Just leave him alone, Rachel.”  
  
“No, it’s fine. I know you don’t get it, Rachel, and I know you’re just trying to help, but I can’t – it’s not that I’m not ready, it’s – ”  
  
“You don’t have to explain,” says Santana, uncharacteristically serious.  
  
“I want to,” he says, and he finds that he does. He takes another gulp of his wine. He’s never really believed in liquid courage, not since his experimental phase in high school, but it can’t hurt. “It’s – he’s part of me. I still feel him. We found each other in my dreams every night, up until about a month ago.”  
  
They blink at him. Rachel’s mouth drops open.  
  
“Kurt! How could you not tell us you were _dream-talking_ with your _soulmate_?”  
  
“I just did.”  
  
“But that’s amazing! That’s – Kurt, I’m so happy for you!”  
  
She has tears in her eyes, and she’s reaching out to launch a hug at him.  
  
“Wait,” says Santana. Rachel freezes. “Hold up. What happened a month ago?”  
  
Kurt sighs internally. Rachel drops her arms and looks at him, curious and expectant.   
  
He tells them about the fight, and everything that’s happened since, the words matter-of-fact now that he’s said them so many times.  
  
Santana narrows her eyes.  
  
“So you’re just waiting around for him to decide you’ve gotten yourself a life?”  
  
“Well, what do you expect me to do? I can’t just drag him into my dreams. Believe me, I’ve tried.”  
  
“No,” says Rachel firmly. “He left because he thought he was enabling you, right?”  
  
“It was more about being pathologically co-dependent, but essentially yes.”  
  
“Well then, he’s probably worried he’ll ruin all the progress you’ve made if he comes back before you’re ready.”  
  
“I am ready. I’ve _been_ ready.”  
  
“Then you have to show him!”  
  
“ _How_?”  
  
“I happen to know that Geoffrey is free for dinner tomorrow night.”  
  
Rachel smiles hopefully. It makes Kurt want to scream.  
  
“Wait, wait, wait. Geoffrey? As in, your assistant Geoffrey?” says Santana, positively dripping with incredulity.  
  
“He’s super cute! Plus, he’s really into older guys.”  
  
Santana scoffs. Kurt cuts her off before she can say something sure to be positively scathing.  
  
“No.”  
  
“You said it yourself, this whole thing started because you refused to let me set you up,” says Rachel earnestly. “Maybe this is how you show him.”  
  
The anger drains out of him quickly, leaving him weary. Still, he doesn’t hesitate.  
  
“It’s not happening, Rachel. Not even if you could go back in time and bring me Taylor Lautner before he got fat.”  
  
Rachel gives him a small smile that quickly droops under the weight of sadness.  
  
“Have you tried talking to him?”  
  
“It’s hard to talk to someone who isn’t there, Rach.”  
  
“But he’s still listening, isn’t he?”  
  
That gives Kurt pause.  
  
“I - I don’t know.”  
  
“Just because he’s your soulmate doesn’t mean he can read your mind, Kurt. Maybe he’s just waiting for you to tell him.”  
  
Kurt blinks. He hadn’t thought of it like that.  
  
Santana groans.  
  
“Jesus, this is excruciating. Just sing him some sappy love song and get it over with.”  
  
Rachel’s eyes light up.  
  
“Yes!”  
  
“I was kidding,” drawls Santana.  
  
“No, but that’s genius! Blaine won’t be able to resist.”  
  
Santana opens her mouth, seems to reconsider. She shrugs.  
  
“It is kind of, like, your mating call.”  
  
She has a point.  
  
Rachel must be able to sense Kurt starting to waver, because she claps her hands in uncontained excitement, face stretched with a broad grin that makes her look all of 15 again.  
  
“Now we just have to find you the perfect song! I happen to have a few ideas for just this sort of – ”  
  
Kurt places a placating hand on her shoulder.  
  
“Thanks,” he says. “But I think I can take it from here.”  
  
&&&&&  
  
He opens his eyes. He’s on a roof – it takes him a moment to recognize it, the roof of his first New York apartment, the Bushwick loft he shared with Rachel and Santana, and then Blaine, too.  
  
The stars are out. They’re dazzling the way Kurt has only ever seen them in Ohio, when his dad used to take him out to the country to watch the meteor showers. The landscape of buildings in the background is blacked out and washed in moonlight. It’s eerie, and beautiful.  
  
The only other light comes from the strands of twinkling white lights that have been strung like a canopy overhead, another layer of stars, close enough to touch.  
  
It feels as if he’s the only person left in the entire world. He closes his eyes, reaches inside. He feels it, a slight thrum, like a guitar string plucked and left to fade to silence.  
  
“I know you can hear me,” he says.  
  
There’s no response. He didn’t expect one.  
  
“I get it, now, why you did what you did. I think part of me felt like it wasn’t right for me to live my life when you don’t get to live yours. The rest of me didn’t want to face life without you. I wasn’t sure I could anymore.”  
  
His breath shudders. He steels himself.  
  
“Now, I know that I can, but I still don’t want to. I never have. If you’re not ready, I understand, but I’m not going to stand by and let you fade out of my life.”  
  
He’s met with silence. He swallows through the ache in his throat. The air feels thick with anticipation, as if the very atoms are holding their breath.  
  
There’s no music, but it doesn’t matter.  
  
“ _Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing?_  
 _Come back to me, and forgive everything!_ ”  
  
His voice cracks. The echo of it cuts through the night. He listens, but there’s no response.  
  
“Seasons may change, winter to spring…”  
  
He opens his eyes. He’s alone. He swallows.  
  
“I love you,” he whispers, “ _‘til the end of time_.”  
  
He stops.  
  
This is it, this is the moment. It has to be, because if it isn’t –    
  
And then he feels it, a tug inside that has him turning before he’s heard even one note.  
  
“ _Come what may…_ ”  
  
Blaine. Oh, god, _Blaine_.  
  
Kurt lets out a sound that ends up halfway between a laugh and a sob.   
  
There he is, his Blaine, making the perfect entrance, as usual. He couldn’t be older than eighteen, just as young and earnest and handsome as he was on the day he proposed.  
  
“ _Come what may…_ ”  
  
They meet in the middle. They clasp hands. They finish the duet together.  
  
“ _Come what may, come what may,_  
 _I will love you until my dying day_.”  
  
They look at each other, catching their breath and drinking each other in. Their bodies are still singing.  
  
“Right on cue, as usual,” murmurs Kurt.  
  
 Blaine’s eyes crinkle in the corners as he smiles.  
  
“I take my craft very seriously.”  
  
Kurt smiles, too, through the tears in his eyes.  
  
“I missed you.”  
  
“I missed you, too. So much.”  
  
Kurt’s fingers tighten.  
  
“You can’t ever do that again. Okay? You can’t. I thought – you were just gone, and I couldn’t find you, and I screamed myself raw for you, Blaine. I can’t do that again.”  
  
The tears get away from him, and Blaine brings up a hand to cradle his cheek. Blaine’s eyes are shining a little too brightly, and his face is written all over with heartbreak – his own or Kurt’s, it doesn’t matter, because, really, it’s the same.  
  
“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry, I – I won’t, I couldn’t do it again, either. I’m sorry.”  
  
Kurt pulls him close, bodies entirely flush as he winds his arms up Blaine’s back.  
  
“You’re forgiven,” he murmurs. “You were right. Mostly. Even though I hated every second of it.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
A shudder runs up Blaine’s spine. Kurt runs a soothing hand down his back.  
  
“I could feel you, sometimes, these last few weeks. When I was awake, I mean.”  
  
Kurt can feel Blaine’s smile against his cheek. He can feel Blaine’s joy in his chest. It’s overwhelming.  
  
“You too,” says Blaine.  
  
“Why did you wait so long?”  
  
Blaine hesitates. His brightness dims in Kurt’s body.  
  
“I - I didn’t know if you still wanted me,” he says softly. “After I abandoned you like that.”  
  
Kurt clutches him impossibly closer.  
  
“Always. I always want you.”  
  
“I know, I know. I guess I needed to hear it.”   
  
Kurt nods, more to feel Blaine’s skin against his than anything else.  
  
“I’m guessing the duet didn't hurt, either.”  
  
“You know that’s my Kryptonite.”  
  
Kurt laughs wetly.  
  
“I love you,” he sighs.  
  
Blaine nuzzles his nose into Kurt’s neck.  
  
“I love you, too.”  
  
“You have no idea how much it meant to me to feel you so…happy.”  
  
“Of course I do.”  
  
“I got a kitten. His name is Tony.”  
  
Blaine grins. Kurt can feel a wave of affection rushing up from his toes.  
  
“I found people.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“People like me. You know, people waiting for their soulmates.”  
  
Kurt smiles, an incredulous laugh at his lips.  
  
“I joined a support group for people who’ve lost their soulmates.”  
  
Blaine laughs, too.  
  
“Great minds, I guess.”  
  
“How did you find them?”  
  
“Luck, or something like it. I set off exploring, and there they were.”  
  
“Just like that?”  
  
“Time is fuzzy there, you know that. It could have been hours or days or weeks, I have no way of knowing. It was a whole lot of nothing, just empty space and the sound of my own voice, and then I heard it. Laughter. I’ve been with them ever since.”  
  
“I wonder – do you know a Michael? He would be young, about mid-twenties.”  
  
“Doesn’t ring a bell. Why? Do you know his soulmate?”  
  
“Her name is Georgia.”  
  
“I’ll keep an eye out.”  
  
“She’d like that. They have a long time to wait.”  
  
He feels Blaine nod. Their bodies shift, and settle, and fit themselves ever closer. Kurt closes his eyes.  
  
“I started a glee club,” murmurs Blaine.  
  
“What?” Kurt laughs.  
  
“We needed something to do. Most of them were pretty reluctant at first, but I won them over.”  
  
“Of course you did.”  
  
“We call ourselves The Lost Souls. We actually sound pretty good.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“We could totally give The Hipsters a run for their money.”  
  
“Do they have you sing lead on every song?” Kurt teases.  
  
“The solo selection process is very fair and diplomatic, I’ll have you know.”  
  
Kurt sighs wistfully.  
  
“I wish I could watch you perform.”  
  
“I’d rather sing with you any day.”  
  
Suddenly, as if born out of Kurt’s wishing, a song starts to play. It’s a slow, swaying rhythm that Kurt recognizes immediately. He pulls back far enough to look Blaine in the eye.  
  
“Dance with me instead?”  
  
Blaine smiles. Kurt would follow that look in his eyes anywhere in this world or the next.  
  
“Of course.”  
  
 _Wise men say only fools rush in,_  
 _But I can’t help falling in love with you…_  
  
They fall into hold as naturally as two magnets sliding together, free hands clasped tightly between their chests. Blaine is humming, and Kurt can feel it, vibrating against his neck and purring in his bones.   
  
“My parents danced to this at their wedding,” murmurs Blaine.  
  
“Your parents have good taste. My parents hired a Bruce Springsteen cover band.”  
  
Blaine laughs. He presses a kiss to the corner of Kurt’s jaw.  
  
They move together, and they move closer, until they’re back where they started, with their arms wound tightly around each other’s bodies. Still, they never lose time with the music.  
  
 _Like a river flows surely to the sea,_  
 _Darling, so it goes,_  
 _Some things are meant to be._  
 _Take my hand, take my whole life, too,_  
 _For I can’t help falling in love with you._  
  
“You can’t leave me,” whispers Kurt, just barely loud enough to be heard above the music.  
  
Blaine nuzzles his nose into that spot he loves behind Kurt’s ear.  
  
“You can’t stop living. Not until it’s time.”  
  
 _Take my hand, take my whole life, too,_  
 _For I can’t help falling in love with you…_  
  
Blaine opens his mouth to sing the last line, lips brushing against the Kurt’s skin, and Kurt joins in on harmony. The piano cuts out, eventually, leaving their voices to linger together in the silence. It’s a perfect moment.  
  
He and Blaine have a lot more to talk about, Kurt knows. But for now, he’s content just to let himself have _this_.  
  
They stay where they are, whispering sweet nothings and holding each other and swaying to music that’s entirely in their heads for what feels like forever and the blink of an eye. Soon enough, the stars start to dim and the sky starts to lighten, and then Blaine is kissing him, and Kurt’s eyes are opening, and –   
  
He’s alone. Tony has curled himself up on the bed next to him.  
  
He smiles.  
  
&&&&&  
  
Time passes. Life goes on.  
  
&&&&&  
  
“Did the kids like their presents?”  
  
Kurt shifts so he can look Blaine in the eye. It’s not particularly easy, tangled as they are in their blankets. They’re curled up together by the fire, in a way that Kurt knows his body would be protesting if it were real. He plants his chin in the middle of Blaine’s chest and looks up through his lashes. The play of firelight in Blaine’s eyes is entirely lovely.  
  
“They loved them. In fact, they sent these along in return.” Kurt leans up and presses a kiss to first one cheek then the other. He stays where he is when he’s finished, eyes level with Blaine’s, mouths close enough to share breath.  
  
Blaine squints at him, teasing.  
  
“Are you sure those weren’t from you?”  
  
“Definitely. _This_ is from me.”  
  
Kurt closes the space between them and kisses him thoroughly.  
  
“Wow,” says Blaine, eyes blinking open. “Merry Christmas to me.”  
  
“That wasn’t the only thing I got you.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Everything about Blaine right now, from his half-masted eyes to the coy twist of his upper lip, is the very definition of _come hither_ , but Kurt has been waiting all night for this. He pecks Blaine on the tip of his nose.  
  
“Wait for me here,” he says, and then he’s up like a shot.  
  
His heart is pounding as he hurries up the stairs, because he knows this should work, Brittany told him it should work, but so much of this dreamscape is beyond his control.  
  
And then there it is, in his bedroom, just where he left it, just exactly as he remembers. He picks up the frame in careful hands and practically runs back down on his spry, young legs. He goes to Blaine, still so warm and inviting and adorable in his cocoon of blankets. He kneels, careful to keep his present hidden behind his back.  
  
“It’s from all of us, actually. We made it for you at Thanksgiving. I’ve been keeping it on the dresser ever since – Brittany told me I should, to give it a chance to become part of the scenery, as it were. I look at it every day. I was really hoping this wouldn’t be the year we broke tradition and ended up in Ohio or something, because then I would have been empty-handed, and that – ”  
  
“Kurt?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Are you going to show it to me?”  
  
His tone is gentle, and patient, and Kurt knows he’s been rambling. He shakes himself, mentally, and brings the photo into view.  
  
“Here, honey. Merry Christmas. Sorry it’s not wrapped.”  
  
He hands it over to Blaine, careful not to smudge fingerprints into the glass. Blaine handles it with reverent care, his eyes going wide with wonder.  
  
“Oh, Kurt,” he breathes. “It’s…”  
  
He trails off. His fingers twitch where they’re gripping the frame, as if he wants to trace over the lines of their faces.  
  
“Sam took the photo.”  
  
Blaine swallows. His gaze never strays from the photo.  
  
“How is it so clear?”  
  
“I memorized it. I wasn’t sure it would work.”  
  
He spent hours, actually, staring at it and willing it to imprint on his subconscious, in order to make sure that it would. Kurt still remembers the expression on Blaine’s face the first time they tried looking at photographs together, when it became clear that none of the faces were distinguishable from flesh-colored blobs. Kurt wouldn’t let that happen again.  
  
“It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. All of you.”  
  
“My dad will be happy to hear that,” says Kurt, wryly.  
  
Blaine laughs. There are tears waiting in his eyes. He gives into his instincts and traces a thumb gently over Tracy’s smiling face.  
  
“The kids…well, they’re not kids anymore, are they?”  
  
“No. But they still love you just the same.”  
  
“They know I love them, too, don’t they? I mean, not just who they were, but who they are, and every person they’ll ever be – I love them no matter what. They know that, right?”  
  
Kurt hugs him from behind, winding his arms beneath Blaine’s until they’re wrapped around his waist.  
  
“Of course they know. I never let them forget it.”  
  
 _I never let them forget you_ is unheard, but understood.  
  
Kurt kisses Blaine’s cheek and rests his chin on Blaine’s shoulder. Blaine breathes in, deeply, then out, and the tension in his muscles seems to melt away. He leans back into Kurt.  
  
“You stopped dyeing your hair,” observes Blaine, after a moment. He’s smiling, amused, and Kurt tightens his hold.  
  
“I stopped seeing the point in pretending I wasn’t getting old,” he says lightly.  
  
“You look distinguished. Just like I said you would.”   
  
“Yes, yes, you were right. Happy?”  
  
Blaine smiles, looks up for the first time since he got his hands on his present.  
  
“Very.”  
  
&&&&&  
  
“You do think it’s crazy, don’t you?”  
  
Kurt stops his pacing and looks Blaine in the eye. Blaine raises his eyebrows mildly.  
  
“What, that they’re trying to plan a bicoastal wedding in less than three months?”  
  
“No, Blaine, that there’s a wedding at all! Hepburn is only 20, he’s barely halfway through college – he can’t even drink legally. He’s too young to even be thinking about marriage!”  
  
“You do realize how hypocritical this is, don’t you?”  
  
“Oh, shut up,” Kurt snaps.   
  
Blaine is unfazed.  
  
“I was still in high school when I proposed. In case you’ve forgotten.”  
  
“I haven’t.”  
  
Blaine just looks at him.   
  
Kurt deflates. He flops down on the couch – it’s the old one, Kurt’s favorite, the burgundy leather that Goldie chewed up when she was a puppy.  
  
“I sound like – well, not my father, he drove me to the proposal. Your father. I sound like your father.”  
  
“And even he came around once the shock wore off.”  
  
Kurt sighs. He scoots closer to Blaine, so that he can rest his head on Blaine’s shoulder.  
  
“We were different.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“He’s my baby.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“I guess I don’t really have a choice, do I?”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
Kurt takes Blaine’s hand and threads their fingers together.  
  
“I’ll take plenty of pictures.”  
  
&&&&&  
  
He’s grinning before he even opens his eyes.  
  
“Well?”  
  
Blaine is hovering, eyes wide and anxious. He’s old, today, as old as he’ll ever be, but he looks young to Kurt. It’s funny, what time does to his perspective.  
  
“Congratulations, Grampa.”  
  
“Oh, my – _Kurt_.”  
  
He grabs Kurt into a fierce hug.  
  
“Seven pounds, three ounces, all twenty fingers and toes accounted for. He’s beautiful, Blaine.”  
  
He can feel Blaine’s tears of joy on his neck, and the tumult of it zinging through his body. He’s suddenly on the verge of tears himself.  
  
“Have they decided on a name?”  
  
“Michael. Michael Blaine Harper.”  
  
Blaine breathes in sharply.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Tracy insisted.”  
  
“I wish I could meet him.”  
  
Kurt closes his eyes.  
  
“Me too.”  
  
&&&&&  
  
“I’m getting too old for this.”  
  
Blaine scoffs.  
  
“Please. We’re in your head. There is literally nothing you can’t do.”  
  
“Talk to me when you’ve spent all day chasing after a pair of toddlers.”  
  
“That actually sounds incredibly familiar.”  
  
“Yeah, but our bodies were built for that sort of thing, then.”  
  
“Your back is acting up again?”  
  
“My back, my knees, you name it.”  
  
“You should make an appointment with your chiropractor.”  
  
“You sound like my dad.”  
  
“That’s how I know I’m making sense.”  
  
Kurt looks over and smiles at Blaine across the short distance that separates them. They’re just barely touching, fingertip to fingertip, with their arms spread out wide.  
  
“You’re right. I probably should take advantage of this young, fit body I have while it lasts.”  
  
He smirks. Blaine narrows his eyes. Kurt can see the moment he catches on, but it’s too late – Kurt is too ready. He leaps up with agility he’s pretty sure he never had in his actual youth, careful not to ruin his poor snow angel, and he’s aiming his first snowball before Blaine has managed to find his footing.  
  
It hits Blaine in the chest, and then Blaine is gaping at him in indignation, and his eyes get that glint, and Kurt is running for his life.  
  
It isn’t long before they’re soaked through and gasping for breath through their laughter. Blaine has better aim, but Kurt is more ruthless, so they’re really pretty evenly matched. It’s a toss-up, in the end, who wins.   
  
It doesn’t matter anyway, because then Blaine is tackling him to the ground, and he’s ruddy-cheeked, and sparkly-eyed, and tousle-haired, and kissing him. And nothing matters at all, except kissing him back.  
  
&&&&&  
  
“So? How was it?”  
  
They’re lounging on the couch at Kurt’s old house in Ohio, circa 2012 if the decorating scheme is anything to go by. It’s been a long day.  
  
“Wonderful,” says Kurt. “And weird. I can’t believe it’s been fifty years.”  
  
“What was it like, being back in the choir room?”  
  
“Like going back in time. Although, really, I should be used to that feeling.”  
  
Blaine smiles at him. He looks young enough today that Kurt feels kind of like a lecher.  
  
“Who ended up flaking?”  
  
“Let’s see – Quinn, of course, and Joe, and Sugar, and what’s-his-name, with the floppy Justin-Bieber-past-his-expiration-date hair.”  
  
“Ryder.”  
  
“Ryder, right.”  
  
“That’s it?”  
  
“Besides the obvious.”  
  
“We were there in spirit.”  
  
Kurt sighs, and snuggles closer.  
  
“I know. Finn’s plaque is still there, hanging on the wall.”  
  
“Did you sing extra loud for me?”  
  
“Of course. I made sure everyone knew I was singing for both of us.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
Kurt pauses. Blaine is running his thumb over Kurt’s knuckles where their hands are clasped over Blaine’s stomach. It’s soothing.  
  
“We did a number for you,” says Kurt, whispered like a confession.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Well, you and Finn. It was Rachel’s idea – a tribute to our fallen heroes.”  
  
“What did you sing?”  
  
“A mash-up of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ and ‘Some Nights.’”  
  
Blaine laughs.  
  
“I’m definitely sorry I missed that.”  
  
“It was something, that’s for sure. They all miss you. They wanted me to send you their love. Tina made me promise to give you the biggest bear hug I could manage, from her.”  
  
“I’ll hold you to that. When I’m not too comfortable to even think about moving.”  
  
Kurt hums his agreement.  
  
“We opened your time capsule, after,” he says, when he thinks of it.  
  
Blaine turns to look at him, brow furrowed in confusion until –   
  
“Oh, god.” His eyes snap wide. “I’d forgotten all about that. What was even in it?”  
  
“Well, there was an adorable video of 18-year-old you waxing on about Tom Hardy, your future second husband. Were you planning to divorce me or outlive me?”  
  
Blaine ducks his head, laughing, nearly bashful.  
  
“Outlive, definitely.”  
  
“I never realized I had that kind of competition.”  
  
Blaine turns and looks Kurt in the eye.  
  
“You didn’t,” he says, fond and firm.  
  
Kurt smiles, and he nuzzles his nose into the hollow beneath Blaine’s jaw.  
  
“It made everyone cry. Even Santana.”  
  
“Even you?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Don’t be. It was a good cry. We had a big group hug, after.”  
  
Blaine sighs, bittersweet, and shifts so that their legs weave together.  
  
“Any good gossip?” he says.  
  
Kurt grins.  
  
“Well, I’m starting to suspect that Artie might be not-so-secretly dating his lead actress, who just so happens to be both extremely famous and 30 years his junior. Rachel thinks I’m crazy, but Santana is totally on board. Oh, and Kitty has had some seriously terrible plastic surgery. Her lips are troutier than Sam’s.”  
  
“I can see that. On both counts, actually.”  
  
“Right? Who knew that Artie would turn out to be such a babe magnet?”  
  
“Or such a playboy?”  
  
“See, now that I could have guessed.”  
  
Blaine smiles, and pauses. His expression smooths into something thoughtful.  
  
“Do you – ” he starts, carefully. He pauses again.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Do you ever regret it? Getting soul-tied, I mean.”  
  
Kurt’s answer is immediate. It just takes him a moment of shock to get it passed his lips.   
  
“Of course not. Why would you even ask that?”  
  
“You could be happily re-married right now if it weren’t for – ”  
  
“I wouldn’t trade a single second with you for that.”  
  
“I know. It’s just – it would be okay, if you thought about it.”  
  
“I _don’t_.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Do you? Regret it?”  
  
His voice wobbles unpleasantly, but he doesn’t care. Blaine could feel his distress, even if he didn’t hear it.  
  
“Never.”  
  
“You could be living your new life right now, if we weren’t.”  
  
“I wouldn’t want to, if it didn’t include you.”  
  
Blaine shifts, turns fully around until his arms are wound around Kurt’s body and his eyes are so close they’re all Kurt can see. They’re beautiful. Deep pools of Blaine. Kurt can’t tell if the ferocity he feels looking into them starts with him or with Blaine, but it doesn’t matter, because it belongs to them both.  
  
And then their eyes are fluttering closed and their mouths coming together, and Kurt has never been more grateful to be here, in a dream, where the limitations of his body mean nothing at all.  
  
&&&&&  
  
Kurt retires. His father has lived longer than anyone could have expected, lived through a heart attack and cancer and the death of two wives, but even his will isn’t strong enough to overcome the wear and tear of over a hundred years of life. Even then, it isn’t until the last few months that he needs full-time care. Kurt moves in and makes sure the last days of his father’s life are as happy and free of pain as they can be.  
  
It’s hard, when he dies. Kurt cries into Blaine’s shoulder and holds steady for their children. He takes care of the funeral arrangements, and the house, and everything, really, until there’s nothing left. And then he drifts through his days like a boat lost at sea, no direction, no anchor, just endless, endless nothing.  
  
He needs a purpose, according to Rachel. Santana says he needs a little fun. Blaine is the one that reminds him – “We were going to see the world, weren’t we?”  
  
“Yes, ‘we,’ as in both of us, together.”  
  
“Well then, what are you waiting for? Take me to Paris.”  
  
So, he buys a ticket and packs a couple of bags. He carries Blaine with him and tells him everything in his dreams.   
  
He’s planning the next trip almost the second he sets foot back on American soil.  
  
He goes to his support group, in between. He spends time with his friends, and his family. And then he’s right back on that plane.  
  
Soon enough, he hits that age he always dreaded, that age when people he knows start dying off, and no one bothers to shake their head over the tragedy of losing someone with so much life left. It’s just expected, at this age.  
  
Kurt starts to slow down, eventually, gets more fatigued more quickly, and felled by the pain in his joints. It happens gradually, until, finally, the only reason he ever gets on a plane is to attend a funeral. And then he can’t even manage that.  
  
 _Soon_ , he thinks.  
  
&&&&&  
  
He isn’t aware of anything at all until he hears it.  
  
“Open your eyes, sweetheart.”  
  
He does.  
  
Blaine is there, smiling, his hand stretched out. The world around them is…white. Empty.  
  
“Where are we?”  
  
“The waiting room.”  
  
Kurt raises his eyebrows.  
  
“This? It’s worse than a dentist’s office.”  
  
Blaine laughs. He’s everything.  
  
“It is what you make it. Take my hand, you’ll see.”  
  
Kurt does. He doesn’t hesitate. Blaine pulls him to his feet, and then – they’re in a meadow, green and lush and secluded. The sun is shining, and there’s a mellow wind stirring the grass.  
  
“Is this where you spend your time, when you’re not with me?”  
  
“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m in town, with the others.”  
  
“Is that where we’re going?”  
  
Blaine smiles, gently, and squeezes his hand.  
  
“No. It’s time for us to make our choice, if you’re ready.”  
  
“You mean, I’m – ?”  
  
“I’m afraid so, yes.”  
  
Kurt squeezes Blaine’s hand in return.  
  
“It’s okay, I was ready. I was tired.”  
  
“I know. We can take as much time as you need, before the next adventure.”  
  
“I don’t – just – kiss me, one last time?”  
  
Blaine looks at him, and it’s love, love, love filling him up to the brim. He leans close, and Kurt closes the distance, and they kiss.  
  
“Don’t worry,” murmurs Blaine. “That won’t be the last.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
He’s starting to feel it, now, the weight of lifetimes and lifetimes, and most of them lived with him – this boy, this man, this soul that he first chose when they both were new.   
  
“Shall we?”  
  
Blaine raises their clasped hands, eyebrows poised in question.   
  
Kurt nods.  
  
“See you on the other side.”  
  
He closes his eyes.


End file.
